Chương 2
Audrey pressed the number.
He answered on the second ring.
“Audrey?”
Her prepared sentence disappeared.
“Dad.”
Silence.
Not empty silence.
Listening silence.
“I need you.”
Another pause followed.
Then Thomas Mercer’s voice changed.
“Tell me where you are.”
“At home.”
“Is Julian there?”
“No.”
“Is he coming back?”
“At noon.”
“With Eleanor.”
Her father breathed out slowly.
“Are you hurt?”
Audrey looked at the bruise spreading beneath her ribs.
“Yes.”
“How badly?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Can you drive?”
“I think so.”
“Don’t think.”
His old impatience surfaced, and absurdly, it steadied her.
“Can you drive safely?”
“Yes.”
“Then pack what you need.”
“I already have some things packed.”
That was a lie.
Thomas did not challenge it.
“I’m coming.”
“Dad, wait.”
“What?”
“I don’t want you confronting him.”
The silence returned.
Five years earlier, that silence would have become an argument.
Thomas Mercer had spent thirty-one years as a prosecutor before retiring, and retirement had not improved his talent for accepting instructions from his daughter.
“I mean it,” Audrey said.
“This cannot become you and Julian screaming at each other.”
“I’m not planning to scream.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
For the first time that morning, she heard something almost like her old father in his voice.
“I’ll be there in forty minutes.”
“Bring someone.”
“Who?”
“Someone who will stop you from doing anything stupid.”
Thomas grunted.
“That eliminates most of my friends.”
“Dad.”
“I heard you.”
After they hung up, Audrey sat for another minute.
Then she called her doctor’s office.
The receptionist told her there were no appointments until late afternoon.
Audrey said quietly, “My husband hit me.”
The woman stopped typing.
Her voice changed too.
“Can you get here now?”
“Yes.”
“Come in.”
Audrey packed one suitcase.
She started with practical things, then became irrational halfway through and spent three minutes deciding whether to take a blue ceramic mug her grandmother had given her.
She left the mug.
Then she went back and wrapped it in a sweater.
Her passport came from the fireproof box.
So did the deed, insurance documents, birth certificate, and the external drive containing copies of her financial records.
She took her laptop, medications, two pairs of shoes, and the gray cardigan she hated but wore whenever offices were too cold.
At 8:26, the doorbell rang.
Audrey froze.
For one terrible second, she imagined Julian standing outside because he had forgotten something.
Then she checked the doorbell feed.
Her father stood on the porch beside a woman Audrey had never seen.
Thomas looked older than he had at Christmas, the last time Audrey had watched him from across a restaurant after refusing his invitation to sit together.
His hair had gone almost completely white.
The woman beside him was perhaps fifty, wearing jeans, a navy jacket, and the expression of someone who had already been told enough not to waste time on politeness.
Audrey opened the door.
Thomas saw her face.
His body became absolutely still.
“Don’t,” Audrey said.
He looked past her into the house.
“I said don’t.”
His jaw worked once.
The woman touched his elbow.
“Thomas.”
That single word seemed to bring him back.
He stepped inside.
“This is Mara Bell,” he said.
Mara offered Audrey her hand but did not move closer.
“I’m an attorney.”
Audrey looked sharply at her father.
“You brought a lawyer?”
“You told me to bring someone who could stop me from doing something stupid.”
Mara glanced at Thomas.
“He set a difficult hiring standard.”
Despite herself, Audrey made a small sound that hurt her lip.
Thomas noticed.
The humor vanished from his face.
Mara did not ask Audrey to tell the whole story.
She asked whether Julian had access to weapons, whether Audrey believed he might return early, whether he controlled any accounts she needed immediately, and whether she wanted medical care before anything else.
The questions were plain.
Answerable.
Audrey found herself grateful for that.
“I have evidence,” she said.
Mara nodded.
“We’ll deal with evidence after we deal with you.”
“I need you to see it first.”
“Audrey.”
“No.”
The force in her own voice surprised all three of them.
She opened the encrypted folder.
“I’ve spent months collecting this.”
Thomas stared at the phone but did not reach for it.
Mara did.
For the next twenty minutes, she reviewed only enough to understand the shape of the problem.
Her expression changed when she reached the home-equity application.
“Did you sign this?”
“No.”
“Did you authorize Julian to sign for you?”
“No.”
“Do you know whether funds were actually disbursed?”
“I found a transfer into an account I don’t recognize.”
Mara looked at her.
“How much?”
“Eighty-six thousand dollars.”
Thomas stood up.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Sit down,” Mara said.
He sat.
Audrey almost smiled again.
Mara enlarged the document.
“This changes some things.”
“What things?”
“It means I’m going to tell you not to confront either of them about the financial records today.”
Audrey looked toward the dining room.
The table was still set from the night before because Eleanor had insisted lunch should be served on Audrey’s wedding china.
At the center sat an empty crystal vase.
Julian had knocked the flowers onto the floor during the argument.
Audrey had cleaned up the water before going to bed.
She hated herself a little for that.
“I’m not leaving before noon,” she said.
Thomas stared at her.
“Yes, you are.”
“No.”
“Audrey, he hit you.”
“I know.”
“He kicked you while you were on the floor.”
Her eyes snapped toward him.
“I didn’t tell you that.”
Thomas looked at the phone in Mara’s hand.
Mara had stopped the recording before that point.
Audrey felt the room narrow.
“How do you know?”
Her father’s face changed.
It was not guilt exactly.
It was something older.
Something he had been carrying into the house before he ever saw her bruises.
Mara lowered the phone.
May you like
Thomas looked at his daughter and said, “Because Julian called me at six this morning.”
Audrey forgot about her ribs.
