Chương 9
Elaine pulled a legal pad closer.
“We need Rebecca.”
Harrison’s face changed.
“No.”
Elaine looked at him.
“No?”
“She won’t talk if she thinks this is adversarial.”
“She may not talk regardless.”
“She’ll talk to me.”
I almost said of course she would.
The words stopped before they left my mouth.
I had no idea what relationship he had with Rebecca now.
Jealousy would have been ridiculous.
The flicker of it annoyed me anyway.
Elaine noticed.
Elaine noticed everything.
“She worked for you a long time,” I said.
“Six years.”
“And then for your mother.”
“Yes.”
“Did she leave your company voluntarily?”
Harrison hesitated.
Elaine leaned back.
“That means no.”
“She resigned.”
“That is technically voluntary.”
“She resigned because I was going to restructure her role.”
“Why?”
His jaw tightened.
“Trust.”
The word sat oddly in the room.
I looked at him.
“What happened?”
“She approved a consulting contract I told her to hold.”
“How expensive?”
“That isn’t relevant.”
“How expensive?”
“Eight million.”
I blinked.
Elaine whistled softly.
Harrison continued before either of us could comment.
“The amount was not the issue.”
“People with normal money will enjoy hearing that,” Elaine said.
“The issue was that she bypassed me.”
I stared at him.
Something about that bothered me.
“Rebecca was meticulous.”
“Yes.”
“She would not casually approve an eight-million-dollar contract after you told her not to.”
“That was my position too.”
“Did she explain?”
“She said my mother had told her the approval was urgent.”
Elaine and I looked at each other.
Harrison saw it.
“No,” he said.
“No what?” I asked.
“We are not turning every bad decision Rebecca ever made into evidence of a conspiracy.”
“It’s not a conspiracy if two people are simply doing things together,” Elaine said.
He rubbed his face.
“Please don’t use that word.”
“What word?”
“Together.”
Elaine stared at him.
“Would you prefer coordinated misconduct?”
“No.”
“Then sit with together.”
He leaned back.
For a moment nobody spoke.
Rain tapped lightly against the window.
A siren moved somewhere several floors below us and faded.
Elaine picked up her phone.
“I am going to call Rebecca.”
Harrison’s head came up.
“No.”
“You don’t control this room.”
“She will shut down if an attorney calls her.”
“She may shut down if you call her.”
“She trusts me.”
I looked at him.
“Does she?”
He met my eyes.
“I think she did once.”
That answer carried enough history to make me uncomfortable.
Elaine noticed that too.
Naturally.
She set the phone down.
“Fine.”
Harrison looked surprised.
“But you call her on speaker.”
His expression hardened.
“No.”
“Then I call her.”
“She may say things she would not say in front of Chloe.”
I almost laughed.
“That is exactly why I should hear them.”
His eyes moved to me.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“I mean she may be afraid of you.”
“Me?”
“You were the person harmed.”
I stared at him.
He continued.
“If she participated in hiding the boys, seeing you could make her defensive.”
“That is disturbingly reasonable,” Elaine said.
Harrison gave her an irritated look.
“I am occasionally reasonable.”
“I have billing records that suggest otherwise.”
I covered my mouth to hide a smile.
Harrison saw it.
For half a second, something familiar passed between us.
A conference room five years earlier.
Late coffee.
Bad jokes.
The two of us sitting shoulder to shoulder over prototype data while everyone else had gone home.
I hated how easily memory could betray discipline.
Harrison looked away first.
“I’ll call her,” he said.
Elaine nodded.
“No accusations.”
“I know.”
“No mention of the emails.”
“I know.”
“No threats.”
He looked offended.
“I don’t threaten people.”
Elaine stared at him.
He sighed.
“Fine.”
He pulled out his phone.
Rebecca answered on the fourth ring.
“Harrison?”
Her voice was cautious.
Not surprised.
That bothered me.
He looked at Elaine.
Elaine pointed silently toward the speaker button.
He pressed it.
“Hi, Rebecca.”
There was a pause.
“You called last night.”
“I did.”
“I assumed you would call again.”
Harrison’s face went still.
“Why?”
Another pause.
“Because your mother called me first.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
Harrison sat straighter.
“When?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
Before he had found the emails.
Before he had called Rebecca.
Maybe before he had even reached the hotel.
Elaine wrote something on her pad.
“What did she want?” Harrison asked.
Rebecca breathed out.
“To know whether you had contacted me.”
“Why would she ask that?”
“Harrison.”
Her voice changed.
There was exhaustion in it now.
“Please don’t make me do this over the phone.”
He glanced at Elaine.
“Then meet me.”
“No.”
“Rebecca.”
“I said no.”
“Why?”
“I have a family.”
The answer seemed to confuse him.
“So?”
“So I’m not twenty-nine anymore, and your mother can still destroy people without raising her voice.”
Harrison’s eyes narrowed.
“What did she threaten?”
“She didn’t.”
“Then what did she say?”
“She asked where my daughter goes to school.”
The room went completely still.
Harrison leaned toward the phone.
“Why?”
“She already knows.”
Rebecca gave a short, brittle laugh.
“That was the point.”
Elaine stopped writing.
I felt cold despite the warm room.
Harrison’s voice lowered.
“Rebecca, did my mother tell you to keep Chloe’s pregnancy from me?”
Nothing.
“Rebecca.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Don’t.”
“I shouldn’t have answered.”
“Did she?”
A long silence followed.
When Rebecca finally spoke, she sounded like someone standing very far away.
“Yes.”
Harrison closed his eyes.
I gripped the edge of the table.
Elaine remained perfectly still.
“Why?” Harrison asked.
“At first?”
Rebecca laughed again, but there was no humor in it.
“She said Chloe was trying to trap you.”
I looked down.
Of course.
“What did you believe?” Harrison asked.
“That your mother knew you better than I did.”
“And later?”
Rebecca did not answer.
Harrison’s voice sharpened.
“Rebecca.”
“Later I knew she was lying.”
His eyes opened.
“How?”
“Because I saw the medical records.”
My heart started beating harder.
May you like
“What records?” I asked.
The silence on the phone changed.
