Chương 6
I picked up my duffel from beside the car.
“I need coffee before we leave.”
Claire blinked.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
It was small and cracked and almost immediately became a sob.
I looked away while she covered her face.
Behind us, a florist carried the last bucket of white roses toward a van.
The wedding flowers left before we did.
Claire drank half a paper cup of coffee in the passenger seat without tasting it.
I could tell because she normally complained when coffee was too bitter, too weak, too hot, too anything, and this one came from a gas station machine that had probably been making the same dark liquid since sunrise.
She just held it with both hands and stared through the windshield.
For the first twenty minutes, neither of us spoke.
The road curved away from the vineyard through low hills and dry grass, and every few miles my phone buzzed in the cup holder.
Dad.
Mom.
Dad again.
I left it face down.
Claire noticed.
“You can answer.”
“I don’t want to.”
“They’re probably panicking.”
“They were already panicking when we left.”
Her mouth twitched.
Not quite a smile.
“Dad hates not being able to control transportation.”
“That may be his least important problem today.”
Claire looked out the window again.
A few miles later, she said, “You really thought Mark was stealing?”
“I thought his business made no sense.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
“So when you warned us, you didn’t know.”
“No.”
She nodded slowly.
“I need to hear you say that.”
“I know.”
“Because right now everyone is acting like you predicted the arrest to the minute.”
“I didn’t.”
“You weren’t secretly working with the FBI?”
“No.”
“You didn’t report him?”
“No.”
She turned toward me.
“Not even anonymously?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
The relief in her face surprised me.
I kept my eyes on the road.
“What did he tell you?”
“About you?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated.
“That you were obsessed.”
“With him?”
“With proving him fake.”
I gave a short laugh.
“That would have required considerably more free time than I have.”
Claire rubbed the rim of her cup with her thumb.
“He said your office had approached one of his clients and that you were behind it.”
“That wasn’t true.”
“He showed me an email.”
“What email?”
“I don’t know.”
“From me?”
“No.”
“From my firm?”
“I think so.”
I glanced at her.
“You think?”
“It had the logo.”
That bothered me.
“Did you read it?”
“Not carefully.”
“What did it say?”
“Something about records.”
“Whose records?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did Mark have the email on his phone?”
“He printed it.”
“Do you know where it is?”
Claire stared at me.
“No.”
“Don’t go looking for it.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
Her voice sharpened.
“I am not completely stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You keep talking to me like I might accidentally confess to a felony while opening Gmail.”
“I’m trying to keep you from making decisions while scared.”
“Well, I am scared.”
“I know.”
“No, Emma, I don’t think you do.”
She put the coffee in the cup holder too hard, splashing some across the lid.
“I was supposed to get married today.”
The anger in her voice arrived before the tears.
“My dress is hanging in a room I can’t even look at.”
“I know.”
“My friends are checking out of hotels.”
“I know.”
“Everyone keeps whispering when I walk by.”
“I know.”
“And the man I was going to marry may have been using me.”
I tightened my hands on the steering wheel.
Claire wiped under one eye with the heel of her palm.
“So please stop sounding like this is just another audit.”
That landed cleanly.
I nodded.
“You’re right.”
She seemed prepared to fight me.
The apology took some air out of her.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at the dashboard.
“I don’t know what I want you to say.”
“You don’t have to.”
A delivery truck merged ahead of us and forced me to brake.
For a few minutes, the only sound in the car was the turn signal clicking as I changed lanes.
Then Claire said, “He was kind to me.”
“I believe you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
She frowned.
“I thought you hated him.”
“I distrusted his business.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
“He remembered when I had migraines.”
Her voice had softened.
“He kept crackers in his car because sometimes I get nauseous before the headache starts.”
I said nothing.
“He called Grandma every Sunday.”
“I know.”
“He knew Dad liked that terrible scotch.”
“I know.”
“So how does somebody do all of that and also—”
She stopped.
I understood why.
Fraud sounded abstract.
The man who brought crackers sounded real.
“He doesn’t have to be fake in every part of his life to have lied about this one,” I said.
Claire looked at me.
“That’s worse.”
“Yes.”
She turned away.
“I wanted him to be a monster.”
“I know.”
“That would be easier.”
“Yes.”
We reached Maya Alvarez’s office ten minutes early.
It occupied the second floor of a converted brick building between a dentist and a physical therapy clinic.
The waiting room had beige chairs, a water dispenser, and a framed photograph of a mountain lake that looked chosen by someone determined not to offend anyone.
Maya herself was shorter than I expected and dressed in dark trousers with a blue blouse and no jacket.
She shook Claire’s hand first.
“Claire, I’m Maya.”
Then mine.
“Emma.”
Her eyes lingered on me for half a second.
“You can wait here.”
Claire looked at me.
I kept my face neutral.
“You’ll be fine.”
“I know.”
She followed Maya down the hallway.
The door closed.
I sat.
For the first time since leaving the motel, there was nothing useful for me to do.
I hated it immediately.
I tried reading an old magazine.
May you like
I got through the same paragraph four times.
A man came out of the dentist’s office downstairs and argued cheerfully with someone on speakerphone about whether tacos counted as breakfast.
