Chương 9
The confirmation page said processing could take several business days.
Rachel almost laughed.
Of course it could.
Real life did not care when a person became desperate for answers.
She closed the laptop halfway.
From the bedroom came a small cough.
Rachel stood immediately.
Sophie was still asleep.
She had rolled onto her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek and the other closed around the rabbit’s leg.
Rachel leaned over her.
The mark on Sophie’s face looked fainter in the dim light.
She resisted the urge to wake her just to confirm she was all right.
Instead she adjusted the sheet, then stood there longer than necessary.
The apartment had never felt like a family home.
It had been Rachel’s place after her divorce from Sophie’s father, a practical two-bedroom close enough to school and work and the grocery store that she could pretend logistics were a form of stability.
She had painted the walls herself one Saturday while Sophie, then four, sat on newspaper and announced that every color Rachel chose was boring.
When Rachel moved in with Daniel, she had been relieved to leave behind the narrow hallway and the unreliable dishwasher.
Tonight the apartment felt safer than the large house they had worked so hard to call theirs.
Rachel returned to the kitchen.
Her phone showed a message from Daniel sent eleven minutes earlier.
Are you awake?
She typed yes.
The reply came almost instantly.
Can I call?
Rachel looked at the bedroom door.
Quietly.
The phone rang.
She answered on the first vibration.
“What happened?”
Daniel asked.
His voice was low.
Rachel wondered where he was.
“Why do you assume something happened?”
“Because you never text me one word unless something happened.”
He was right again.
She disliked that too.
“I found the lawsuit.”
Silence.
“What lawsuit?”
“Harold Bennett versus your mother, my father, and the insurance company.”
Another pause.
“I never saw the filing.”
“You knew there was one.”
“I knew Claire’s dad threatened everybody with lawyers.”
“He did more than threaten.”
Rachel reopened the laptop.
“There’s a motion online.”
“What does it say?”
“That Margaret transferred money to my father before the fire.”
Daniel breathed out slowly.
“Claire showed me a check.”
“You said one check.”
“That’s the one I meant.”
“No, Daniel.”
Rachel kept her voice low.
“You said Claire had copies of checks, plural.”
He did not respond.
“So which is it?”
“I saw one copy.”
“Did she say there were more?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Why do I have to interrogate every noun?”
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
“I’m trying.”
“Trying would have been telling me this before we got married.”
Daniel went quiet.
Rachel regretted the sentence and did not take it back.
Finally he said, “I know.”
“Where are you?”
“In my car.”
“Still at work?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
“Outside the house.”
Rachel sat straighter.
“Is Margaret there?”
“No.”
“Lily?”
“With my sister.”
Rachel remembered Daniel had mentioned a younger sister named Anna, a pediatric physical therapist who lived forty minutes away and had attended their wedding with a man she later broke up with.
Rachel had met her three times.
“Why is Lily with Anna?”
“Because I didn’t think she should be here tonight.”
That answer eased something in Rachel despite herself.
“Did Lily say anything?”
“She said Grandma made Sophie cry.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
“Anything else?”
“She said Sophie didn’t push her.”
Rachel’s hand tightened around the phone.
“How did that come up?”
“I asked what happened.”
“And?”
“She said she pulled Bunny and fell.”
Rachel said nothing.
Daniel’s voice changed.
“I believe Sophie.”
It should have helped.
Instead Rachel felt a tired kind of anger.
“You needed a three-year-old witness?”
“No.”
“It sounds like you did.”
“I needed to understand exactly what happened.”
“You keep using that word.”
“What word?”
“Understand.”
Daniel was quiet.
Rachel said, “Sometimes understanding is what people ask for when they’re not ready to condemn what they already know was wrong.”
“That’s fair.”
The absence of defensiveness took some of the force out of her anger.
She looked at the motion again.
“What did your mother say about the money?”
“I haven’t asked her.”
Rachel stared at the phone.
“Why not?”
“Because you told me not to mention storage, and I didn’t want her to know what we’re looking for.”
“So you asked nothing?”
“I asked about your father.”
“And?”
“She denied knowing him before the claim.”
“That’s false.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because of the photograph.”
Rachel looked toward her laptop bag.
“That photograph proves they were in the same place.”
“It proves more than she admitted.”
He had a point.
Rachel hated how exhausting it was to distinguish lies from incomplete truths.
“Did she sound scared?”
“No.”
“Angry?”
“Yes.”
“That’s normal for her.”
Daniel gave a faint exhale that might have been a laugh.
It was the first familiar sound between them all evening.
Rachel almost responded in kind.
She stopped herself.
“What did she say about Claire?”
“That Claire was obsessed.”
“With the fire?”
“With proving Mom had done something criminal.”
“Did she?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Daniel continued before she could answer.
“I’m not defending her.”
“I know.”
This time she meant it.
He sounded tired enough that she pictured him sitting behind the wheel in the dark driveway, staring at the house where a few hours earlier they had all expected to eat dinner.
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m going through my desk.”
“For what?”
“Claire’s storage receipts.”
“Why?”
“The facility changed management a few years ago.”
“So?”
“So I want the current unit number before we show up tomorrow and start asking questions.”
Rachel almost smiled.
“That is the first sensible thing anyone has said to me in hours.”
“I’ll take the compliment.”
“It wasn’t one.”
“I’m taking it anyway.”
For a moment neither spoke.
May you like
Rachel could hear paper moving on his end.
Then Daniel said, “I found something else.”
