Chương 11
“What contractor?”
Nolan shrugged.
“She told me to wait in the car.”
Raymond’s attention sharpened.
“How far?”
“Twenty-five minutes.”
David ended his call.
“The sergeant is putting the information out now.”
Emily was already walking toward my car.
“I’m going.”
Raymond stepped into her path.
“Police should get there first.”
“They can meet me there.”
“Emily.”
“No.”
Her voice broke through the driveway.
“No more waiting for people to decide what I’m allowed to do.”
Raymond did not argue.
He looked at me instead.
“Can you drive?”
“Yes.”
“I’m coming.”
Emily shook her head.
“I don’t want an entourage.”
“This isn’t an entourage.”
Raymond nodded toward the road.
“It’s someone who knows how not to make things worse when police arrive.”
That was a fair description of him.
It was not necessarily a fair description of me.
David held out his hand.
“Keys.”
I stared at him.
“You’re not driving.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
“You’re shaking.”
I looked down.
He was right.
My right hand trembled enough that the keys rattled when I pulled them from my purse.
I hated him again for being correct.
Emily saw it.
Her anger softened.
“Mom.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I can drive.”
“Give David the keys.”
“I have been driving since before any of you had licenses.”
“Mom.”
That tone had not changed since she was sixteen.
I handed David the keys.
He looked surprised.
“Don’t enjoy this.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
Nolan offered to follow with Claire.
Claire refused.
“I’m staying for the officers.”
“Why?”
“Because they need my statement.”
“They can get it later.”
“No.”
She looked toward the house.
“I’ve done later enough.”
Nolan nodded once.
He looked at Emily.
“I’ll go with you.”
Emily hesitated.
Then she said, “Okay.”
We divided ourselves between David’s car and mine.
Raymond rode with Nolan.
Emily and I sat in the back of my sedan while David drove.
It was absurdly formal, like being chauffeured to a fundraiser.
The absurdity almost made me laugh.
Almost.
Emily stared at the location dot on my phone.
It moved twice, then stopped.
“She’s still there.”
“Good.”
“How is that good?”
“It means she isn’t moving Sophie somewhere else.”
Emily did not answer.
I regretted the phrasing.
After a minute, she said, “What if she tells Sophie I abandoned her?”
“She won’t believe that.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
I corrected myself.
“I don’t.”
Emily looked out the window.
Streetlights passed across her face.
“She’s six.”
“I know.”
“She believes adults.”
“Most six-year-olds do.”
“Adrian knows that.”
The anger in her voice was quieter now.
“He always tells her things in a way that makes him sound reasonable.”
“What kinds of things?”
“If I say no ice cream before dinner, he tells her Mommy gets anxious about sugar.”
I looked at her.
“If I don’t want her staying up late, he says Mommy needs everything controlled.”
Emily rubbed her thumb over the edge of the sling.
“They’re tiny things.”
“They don’t sound tiny.”
“They felt tiny.”
She leaned her head against the glass.
“That’s the worst part.”
I waited.
“He never started with anything big.”
The tires hummed over the interstate.
“He’d correct how I told a story.”
A breath.
“How I loaded the dishwasher.”
Another.
“How long I took to answer a text.”
She looked at me.
“And every time I got angry, he acted surprised.”
I had heard variations of that sentence in courtrooms.
Hearing my daughter say it made every previous version feel newly inadequate.
“What did I miss?” I asked.
She turned away.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not asking you to comfort me.”
“Good.”
“I’m asking because I want to know.”
Emily was silent so long I thought she might refuse.
Then she said, “You liked him.”
“Yes.”
“You liked that he was ambitious.”
“Yes.”
“You liked that he could argue with you.”
I almost smiled.
“Yes.”
“You said he had backbone.”
The memory came back with humiliating clarity.
Christmas three years earlier.
Adrian had challenged me over some zoning dispute I barely cared about.
Afterward I had told Thomas’s old friend that Emily had finally married someone who could hold his own at my dinner table.
I had meant it as praise.
“I said that.”
Emily nodded.
“He loved when you said things like that.”
“I can see why.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“He loved beating you.”
I frowned.
“At dinner conversations?”
“At everything.”
The realization was ugly because it was plausible.
David glanced at us in the rearview mirror but said nothing.
Emily continued.
“He used to prepare before you came over.”
“For dinner?”
“He’d ask what cases you were following.”
“That sounds normal.”
“He’d read about them.”
She gave a tired laugh.
“He wanted to know enough to make you wrong about something.”
I looked out the window.
Cars moved beside us, ordinary people carrying groceries, children, dogs, unfinished arguments.
“I thought he respected me.”
“He did.”
Emily rested her head against the seat.
“That was part of it.”
The distinction sat there.
Respect without affection.
Admiration sharpened into competition.
I had seen it before.
I had simply not seen it at my own table.
The phone in Emily’s hand buzzed.
She looked down.
A message from Robert.
Is Sophie safe?
Emily typed back.
I don’t know yet.
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Robert finally wrote, I am so sorry.
Emily stared at the words.
She did not answer.
“She’s still at the house,” she said.
The location dot had not moved.
David took the Briarwood exit.
The houses grew farther apart.
New subdivisions gave way to older ranch homes, dark yards, and strips of commercial property closed for the night.
Raymond called.
David answered through the car speakers.
“Police are three minutes ahead of us.”
Emily leaned forward.
“Tell them not to frighten Sophie.”
Raymond’s voice softened.
“I already did.”
“Tell them Celeste may tell her I’m sick.”
“I did.”
“Tell them—”
“Emily.”
He paused.
“They know there’s a child inside.”
May you like
She sat back.
“I hate this.”
