Chương 8
Meredith read the message twice before handing the phone to Daniel.
He sat up against the headboard and squinted at the screen in the dark.
“International number.”
“Yes.”
“Could be spoofed.”
“Yes.”
“Could also be your mother.”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You’re doing the one-word thing now.”
“It’s three in the morning.”
“Fair.”
Meredith took the phone back and opened the message details.
No profile image.
No previous texts.
No name.
Nothing that gave her a foothold.
She typed, Who is this?
Then deleted it.
Daniel watched.
“Why not answer?”
“Because if it’s Mom, she knows I received it.”
“She also knows your number.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
Meredith swung her feet to the floor.
“I don’t want whoever sent this to know what part interests me.”
Daniel rubbed his eyes.
“That sounds like something Marcus would say.”
“I’m spending too much time around you.”
“You married me.”
“Temporary lapse in judgment.”
“Nearly two years is a long lapse.”
Meredith stood and pulled on the robe hanging behind the bedroom door.
“Coffee.”
“It’s 2:49.”
“Then very early coffee.”
Downstairs, she filled the kettle instead of using the machine because the mechanical grinding sounded intolerable at that hour.
Daniel came in wearing sweatpants and the white dress shirt from the wedding, unbuttoned at the collar and wrinkled badly enough that Elaine would have considered it a moral failure.
Meredith set two mugs on the counter.
“You don’t have to stay up.”
“I was not asleep.”
“You could try.”
“So could you.”
She ignored that.
Daniel placed her phone beside the mugs.
“Providence in 1998.”
Meredith leaned against the counter.
“I would have been four.”
“Vanessa?”
“Seven.”
“Your parents living in Boston then?”
“Yes.”
“Any connection to Rhode Island?”
“My father did business there.”
“What kind?”
“Real estate.”
Daniel waited.
Meredith frowned.
“At least I think so.”
“You don’t know?”
“I was four.”
“That defense is admissible.”
She poured water over the tea bag in her own mug.
Daniel looked offended.
“You said coffee.”
“I changed my mind.”
“At three in the morning?”
“Try to recover.”
He opened a cabinet.
Meredith watched him reach automatically for the crackers he ate when he could not sleep.
There was something comforting in the predictability.
It made the text feel less powerful.
Until Daniel said, “Do you remember your father ever mentioning Providence specifically?”
“No.”
“Your mother?”
“No.”
Meredith paused.
“Maybe once.”
Daniel stopped opening the cracker sleeve.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Triggered memory?”
“You sound unbearable when you talk like a consultant.”
“I am a consultant to several unbearable people.”
She closed her eyes.
There was a smell in the kitchen that did not belong there.
Not really.
Something imagined.
Furniture polish.
Old wool.
Her grandmother’s house in Brookline.
Meredith had been eight or nine, hiding beneath the dining table while Elaine argued with someone in the kitchen.
She remembered only pieces.
Her mother saying, I told him Providence was finished.
A man’s voice answering, Nothing is finished if there are records.
Meredith opened her eyes.
Daniel had stopped joking.
“What?”
She stared into her tea.
“I heard Mom say Providence once when I was a kid.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your father?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
The certainty surprised her.
She could not summon the man’s face, but she could remember his voice.
Rough.
Older.
Not Robert.
“What else did they say?”
“Something about records.”
Daniel leaned against the opposite counter.
“Records of what?”
“I don’t know.”
Meredith looked at him.
“And before you ask, yes, I understand that is becoming an irritating answer.”
He said nothing.
She picked up her phone.
“Dad will still be awake.”
Daniel did not stop her.
Robert answered on the fourth ring.
“Meredith?”
His voice was thick.
“Were you sleeping?”
“No.”
She heard glass clink.
“Are you drinking?”
“No.”
Another clink.
Meredith closed her eyes.
“Dad.”
“One bourbon.”
“At three in the morning.”
“It stopped being a normal day several hours ago.”
She could not argue with that.
“Do you know anything about Providence in 1998?”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Silence.
Meredith straightened.
“Dad?”
“Where did you hear that?”
Her fingers tightened around the phone.
Daniel’s expression changed at once.
“Answer me.”
Robert exhaled slowly.
“Who told you?”
“Why does that matter?”
“It matters.”
“Then there is something.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Robert muttered something she could not make out.
Then she heard footsteps.
A door shut.
When he spoke again, his voice was lower.
“Vanessa cannot hear this.”
Meredith stared at the counter.
“Why?”
“Because it has nothing to do with her.”
“That sentence has never meant anything good in this family.”
“Meredith.”
“What happened in Providence?”
Robert took a long breath.
“In 1998, I was involved in a development project.”
“What kind of development?”
“Commercial.”
“Where?”
“Near the river.”
“That’s vague.”
“It was twenty-eight years ago.”
“You remembered quickly.”
He went silent again.
Meredith felt anger rising.
“Was Mom involved?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She handled financial administration for me then.”
Meredith blinked.
“Mom worked for you?”
“For the company.”
“You have never mentioned that.”
“It wasn’t important.”
“Apparently someone disagrees.”
Daniel made a small gesture.
Ask who else.
Meredith nodded.
“Who were the partners?”
Robert hesitated.
“Two local investors.”
“Names.”
“Meredith.”
“Names.”
Her father’s voice hardened.
“Do not interrogate me.”
“Then stop answering like you’re hiding something.”
A second passed.
Then two.
“Charles Vale and Martin Rourke.”
Daniel picked up his own phone and began typing the names into a note, not a search.
Meredith continued.
“What went wrong?”
“The project failed.”
“How?”
“Financing.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is the answer.”
“Then why would someone text me about it now?”
Robert did not respond.
Meredith’s pulse began to climb.
“Dad.”
“There was a lawsuit.”
“What kind?”
“Civil.”
“Over money?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
“Several million.”
Meredith laughed once in disbelief.
“You forgot a several-million-dollar lawsuit?”
“It was settled.”
“By whom?”
Another silence.
Daniel mouthed, Mom?
Meredith shook her head impatiently.
“Who paid?”
May you like
“The company.”
“Which company?”
