Chương 5
“Vanessa?”
“They don’t know.”
Ortiz was already moving toward the door.
“Description?”
“Blonde, mid-thirties, wearing a gray coat and sunglasses.”
“That’s her,” I said.
Ortiz stopped.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“Could anyone else fit that description?”
“Of course.”
She nodded once.
“Then stay here.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“That wasn’t a joke.”
She left.
Richard crossed to the door and locked it after her.
I stared at him.
“Does that help?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
Eli stirred in his bassinet.
I reached toward him, but the movement pulled painfully at my incision.
Richard noticed and lifted him carefully.
He brought him to me without asking.
That small improvement almost made me smile.
“Do you think Vanessa knows?” I asked.
“Knows what?”
“That I’m alive.”
Richard looked toward the locked door.
“If she didn’t before she came here, she may now.”
A soft knock sounded from the hallway.
Richard froze.
Another knock followed.
Then a woman’s voice came through the door.
“Madison?”
I stopped breathing.
The voice was familiar.
Not Vanessa.
My mother-in-law.
“Madison, honey, it’s me.”
Richard looked at me.
I stared at the door.
Preston’s mother knocked again.
“I know you’re in there.”
Then her voice broke.
“And I know what my son did.”
Richard did not move.
Neither did I.
For a few seconds, the only sound in the room was Eli breathing through his nose against my chest.
Preston’s mother knocked once more.
“Madison, please.”
Her name was Evelyn Vale, and in twelve years I had never heard her say please without making it sound like a negotiation.
Richard looked at me.
I shook my head.
He stayed where he was.
“Mrs. Vale,” he called through the door.
There was a pause.
“Who is that?”
“Richard Whitaker.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“Oh.”
Even now, even frightened, Evelyn could make one syllable sound judgmental.
“I need to speak to my daughter-in-law.”
“She’s recovering from surgery.”
“I know.”
My hand tightened around Eli’s blanket.
“How do you know?” I asked.
Silence.
Then Evelyn answered through the door.
“Because Preston called me.”
Richard’s face changed.
I pushed myself higher despite the pain.
“When?”
“Madison, open the door.”
“When did he call you?”
“About an hour ago.”
Richard was already reaching for his phone.
I pointed toward the door.
“Let her in.”
He looked at me as if he wanted to argue.
“Please.”
That word worked better on Richard than it ever had on Evelyn.
He unlocked the door but kept himself between it and my bed.
Evelyn entered wearing a camel coat buttoned wrong at the waist.
I noticed that immediately.
Evelyn never buttoned anything wrong.
Her lipstick was gone.
Her gray-blonde hair, normally sprayed into a shape capable of surviving hurricanes, had flattened on one side.
She stopped when she saw me.
Then she saw Eli.
Her face crumpled so quickly that I almost looked away.
“Oh, thank God.”
She covered her mouth.
I had spent years resenting that woman.
Resenting the birthday cards with my name misspelled after a decade.
Resenting the way she called my work “your little consulting thing.”
Resenting every holiday meal during which she managed to compliment my cooking while mourning some imaginary flaw in Preston’s childhood.
Watching her cry was not satisfying.
That irritated me too.
“You said Preston called.”
Evelyn nodded.
Richard closed the door.
“He called from a number I didn’t recognize.”
“What did he say?”
She looked at Richard.
“Can we speak alone?”
“No.”
“Madison.”
“He stays.”
Evelyn’s lips pressed together from habit.
Then she seemed to remember that I had recently been pushed off a mountain by her son.
The argument left her.
“He said there had been an accident.”
“What kind of accident?”
“He said you fell.”
I stared at her.
“That’s not what you told us outside.”
Her eyes dropped.
“I know.”
“Then stop protecting him.”
“I’m not.”
“You’ve been protecting him since he was fourteen.”
That landed.
Evelyn recoiled slightly.
Richard glanced at me but said nothing.
The room became too quiet.
When Preston was fourteen, he stole a teacher’s car for ninety minutes because two older boys dared him.
His father paid for the damage.
Evelyn told the school Preston had been under unusual emotional pressure because his grandfather was ill.
His grandfather had been playing golf in Arizona.
Preston told me that story on our third date like it was charming.
I had laughed.
That memory now felt like discovering mold behind wallpaper.
Evelyn sat in the chair Ortiz had used.
“He sounded panicked.”
“Preston?”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t panic.”
“I am aware of my son’s personality.”
“Are you?”
Her eyes flashed.
There she was.
For half a second, the old Evelyn returned.
Sharp.
Defensive.
Offended by the suggestion that anyone understood Preston better than she did.
Then Eli made a soft noise.
Her face changed again.
“What exactly did he say?” Richard asked.
Evelyn rubbed her hands together.
“He said there had been a terrible accident at Ravenstone.”
“Did he mention Vanessa?”
“No.”
“Did he ask whether Madison was alive?”
“No.”
That caught me.
Richard heard it too.
“What did he ask?” he said.
Evelyn looked at me.
“He asked whether anyone had contacted me.”
“Who?”
“He didn’t say.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That nobody had.”
Her voice became quieter.
“Then he told me not to answer calls from insurance companies.”
Richard took one step closer.
“Those words?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly?”
“He said, ‘If anyone from the insurance company calls, don’t talk to them until I get there.’”
“When was he coming?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
I shifted Eli against my shoulder.
“He told you I fell, and your first thought wasn’t to ask where I was?”
Evelyn’s chin trembled.
“I did ask.”
“And?”
“He said they hadn’t found you yet.”
The absurdity of it sat between us.
If Preston believed I had slipped accidentally, he should have been with search teams.
He should have been screaming my name into the ravine.
May you like
He should have been calling hospitals.
Instead, he was calling his mother about insurance companies.
