Chương 5
Chloe came toward her, then stopped as though uncertain whether she was allowed.
Victoria looked at her.
“Call my obstetrician.”
Chloe blinked.
“Me?”
“My phone has evidence on it.”
For the first time that night, Chloe did exactly what she was asked.
She pulled out her phone and began searching.
Behind them, one of the officers called for a warrant supervisor.
Julian stared at the basement door.
Chloe put the phone to her ear.
Then she looked at her brother and said, “If they find out who Camille Hart was before you tell me, I will never forgive you.”
Julian finally looked at his sister.
His face had lost all calculation.
What remained was grief.
“She was our father’s daughter.”
Chloe’s phone slipped from her hand and struck the kitchen floor.
Chloe stared at the phone on the tile as if it had fallen from someone else’s hand.
“Our father had another daughter?”
Julian did not answer.
Chloe looked at Victoria instead.
Victoria wished she could offer ignorance without feeling complicit in it.
“I didn’t know.”
Chloe bent slowly and picked up her phone.
The screen had cracked across one corner.
She pressed the call button anyway.
“Was she older than me?”
Julian looked toward the officers.
“Not here.”
“That’s becoming your favorite sentence.”
“Chloe.”
“Was she older?”
“Yes.”
“How much older?”
“Seven years.”
Chloe’s face tightened.
“So when I was born, she was seven.”
Julian said nothing.
“And somehow I had her name.”
Victoria watched the older officer glance toward Julian, attentive now without appearing to be.
Chloe noticed it too.
She lowered her voice.
“Why?”
Julian rubbed his thumb along the side of his index finger.
It was a habit Victoria had seen during difficult board meetings, the tiny repetitive motion he made when building a lie.
“Dad had an affair.”
Chloe laughed once.
“That explains a half sister, not why I was named after her.”
“She disappeared.”
The kitchen seemed to contract around the sentence.
Victoria forgot her abdominal pain for a moment.
Chloe stopped breathing through her mouth.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
Julian looked at the basement door again.
Officer Reynolds stepped closer.
“Sir, you may want to be careful about discussing something potentially criminal in front of officers.”
Julian gave him a hard look.
“I’m talking to my sister.”
“You’re free to do that.”
The warning changed nothing and everything.
Chloe folded her arms tightly across her chest.
“How did she disappear?”
“Our father said her mother took her.”
“Said?”
Julian’s eyes flickered.
“That’s what we were told.”
“Who’s we?”
“Mom and me.”
“You were what, fourteen?”
“Fifteen.”
“And you believed him?”
“For a while.”
The contractions returned with enough force that Victoria pressed both palms against the counter.
Chloe turned immediately.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
The word came out sharper than Victoria intended.
Officer Reynolds reached for the chair nearest the island.
“Sit.”
Victoria lowered herself carefully.
The baby moved again, harder this time.
Chloe looked from her to Julian with panic beginning to overtake anger.
“My doctor.”
She raised the damaged phone.
“I forgot.”
“You didn’t forget.”
“I literally did.”
“You’ve had a bad five minutes.”
Chloe stared at her.
Then, unexpectedly, her mouth trembled.
Victoria regretted the joke as soon as she saw it.
Chloe dialed.
Julian stepped closer to Victoria.
She lifted one hand.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“Victoria.”
“Don’t come near me.”
His face hardened.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
She looked toward the staircase.
The streaks of grease caught the blue-red pulse of emergency lights through the foyer windows.
“No?”
“That wasn’t my plan.”
The kitchen went silent again.
Julian seemed to hear his own words only after they had left his mouth.
Officer Reynolds’s expression sharpened.
Victoria said, “Then what was?”
Julian shook his head.
“I phrased that wrong.”
“You phrased it clearly.”
“I meant I didn’t know my mother was going to do this.”
“What did you know?”
“Nothing.”
Victoria almost smiled.
There was that word again.
Chloe turned away from the phone.
“Her answering service is calling the hospital.”
Victoria nodded.
“Thank you.”
Chloe did not look at her.
The small politeness seemed to embarrass them both.
The older officer walked toward Julian.
“Sir, I’d like you to remain in the foyer while we sort out who needs medical transport.”
“Am I being detained?”
“Not at this moment.”
“Then I can stand in my kitchen.”
“You can.”
The officer paused.
“But if you go near that basement door or any electronic devices, that may change.”
Julian looked toward Victoria.
For once, he had no clever response.
Chloe moved beside Victoria’s chair.
Her bare knee bounced rapidly.
After several seconds she said, “Did Dad kill her?”
Julian’s face drained of color.
Victoria turned toward him.
Nobody had accused him of anything.
Chloe had.
And Julian reacted like she had named a room he had spent years avoiding.
“No.”
Chloe’s knee stopped moving.
“You know something.”
“I know Dad was a terrible man.”
“That is not the same answer.”
“He drank.”
“So?”
“He lied.”
“So?”
“He hit Mom.”
Eleanor had never mentioned that.
Victoria pictured her elegant mother-in-law at charity lunches and board dinners, always composed, always controlling the room through small corrections delivered with a smile.
For one second, pity tried to enter.
Then Victoria remembered the rag moving across the marble.
Pity stayed where it was and anger made room beside it.
Chloe said, “What did he do to Camille?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that while answering things I didn’t ask.”
Julian looked tired suddenly.
Older.
The polished executive posture had collapsed, leaving his shoulders rounded.
“Our father got a woman named Leah Hart pregnant before he married Mom.”
“Before?”
“Yes.”
“So Camille wasn’t the result of an affair.”
“No.”
“Then why did you say affair?”
Julian shut his eyes.
Victoria saw Chloe understand the significance of the correction.
“Because you still lie when the truth is already out.”
Julian said nothing.
Chloe continued.
“Did Mom know about Leah?”
May you like
“Yes.”
“Before she married Dad?”
