Chương 6
“That may be one of the consequences.”
I ended the call.
Hart approached.
“Your father is headed to St. Agnes?”
“Yes.”
“You should go.”
“Is Vanessa under arrest?”
“Not yet.”
I nodded.
She watched my face.
“You know better than to ask what I can’t tell you.”
“I also know better than to pretend that makes it easier.”
“That’s fair.”
She glanced toward the building.
“We have officers securing the vehicle and arranging to preserve the bat properly.”
“Good.”
“And I need you to stay out of the evidence side of this.”
“Even if you think somebody’s doing it wrong.”
I looked at her.
She raised one eyebrow.
I almost smiled.
“I said I will.”
“Your face said something different.”
“My face isn’t under oath.”
That earned the smallest hint of a smile.
Then Hart’s expression settled again.
“Your father needs his daughter more than he needs another investigator tonight.”
The sentence annoyed me because it was accurate.
I got into my car.
The drive to St. Agnes took eleven minutes.
I drove too fast for the first three and forced myself to slow down.
At a red light, I realized my hands hurt from gripping the wheel.
I loosened them.
My phone buzzed in the cup holder.
Daniel.
Then again.
Daniel.
Then a third time.
This one was from a number I did not recognize.
I ignored all of them.
The emergency department waiting area was unusually crowded.
A toddler slept sideways across two plastic chairs while his mother rubbed his back.
A man in work boots held a towel around one hand.
Two college-aged women whispered over a cracked phone screen.
I found Dad behind a curtain in an exam bay.
He had changed into a hospital gown and looked offended by the entire concept.
“They cut my sweater.”
I looked at the brown wool pooled inside a plastic belongings bag.
“It was not a good sweater.”
“You gave me that sweater.”
“I know what I said.”
He almost smiled.
Then he winced.
A purple bruise had begun spreading along the left side of his chest.
His forearm was swollen.
There was dried blood near his elbow.
I pulled a chair beside the bed.
“What did they say?”
“They’re doing X-rays.”
“Head CT?”
“The doctor asked about it.”
“Did you hit your head?”
“No.”
“Did you lose consciousness?”
“No.”
“Any dizziness?”
He gave me a look.
“Are you going to let them do their jobs?”
I sat back.
“Apparently everybody has been told to say that to me tonight.”
He adjusted the blanket.
For a while we listened to the monitor beeping in the bay next door.
Then Dad said, “You were hard on him.”
I did not pretend not to understand.
“He signed documents he didn’t read.”
“I know.”
“He may have helped Vanessa build a false record that you’re incompetent.”
“I know.”
“He watched her hurt you.”
Dad’s mouth tightened.
“He froze.”
I stared at him.
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
“He froze.”
“For how long?”
Dad looked away.
I regretted the question immediately.
Not because it was unfair.
Because his face answered it.
“Dad.”
“She hit me once.”
His voice became quiet.
“Then I dropped the glass.”
I waited.
“She hit my arm when I covered myself.”
“Where was Daniel?”
“By the kitchen doorway.”
“And then?”
“He told her to stop.”
“After the second hit?”
Dad nodded.
I looked toward the curtain.
There are forms of betrayal that arrive dramatically.
Affairs.
Theft.
Public humiliation.
And there are forms that live inside three seconds of hesitation.
Three seconds while a person you raised decides whether helping you will cost too much.
“What happened next?”
“She dropped the bat.”
“Did Daniel pick it up?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said we needed to get it out of sight before the police came.”
I went still.
“That is not freezing.”
Dad rubbed his thumb along the blanket.
“He panicked.”
“That is evidence concealment.”
“Claire.”
“I’m not saying it as an agent.”
“You sound exactly like an agent.”
“What do you want me to call it?”
He did not answer.
A nurse pushed the curtain aside.
“Mr. Mercer, radiology is ready for you.”
Dad looked relieved.
The nurse unlocked the bed wheels.
“We’ll have him back shortly.”
I stood.
Dad caught my wrist.
“Don’t call Daniel yet.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Don’t punish him before we know everything.”
I looked down at his hand.
Bruises ringed his wrist above the hospital bracelet.
“He helped put you in this bed.”
“He’s still my son.”
The nurse pretended very carefully to be interested in the IV pole.
I nodded.
Dad released me.
They wheeled him away.
I sat alone beside the empty space where his bed had been.
My phone buzzed again.
The unknown number had left a voicemail.
I listened.
A woman spoke quickly.
“Claire, this is Rebecca Sloan.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“I’m Vanessa’s sister.”
I sat straighter.
“I think I’m the person who picked her up from the station.”
Her voice shook.
“I didn’t know what happened until she got in the car.”
There was a pause.
Then she said, “She made me pull over because she said she needed to go back before the police decided she was running.”
Another pause.
“I need to tell you something before she talks me out of it.”
I turned the volume higher.
Rebecca inhaled.
“Vanessa asked me three weeks ago whether I knew anyone who could notarize documents without the signer being present.”
My body went cold.
“I told her no.”
Rebecca’s next words came faster.
“But that’s not the worst part.”
I stopped breathing.
“She showed me a medical letter about your father.”
The hospital hallway seemed to narrow.
“She said a doctor had declared him cognitively impaired.”
Rebecca began crying.
“I believed her.”
I closed my eyes.
“I gave her the name of a notary I used for my divorce paperwork.”
She swallowed hard.
May you like
“But Claire, the doctor’s letter wasn’t real.”
I looked toward the hallway where my father had disappeared.
