Chương 4
He looked at me.
"Trusting someone is not stupid."
He looked away.
"But trusting him was."
I did not have an answer for that.
Because I was asking myself the same question.
How had I missed it?
How had I lived beside someone for fifteen years and not seen the person underneath?
The paramedic finished checking my blood pressure.
"You should both go to the hospital."
I nodded.
Daniel stood near the doorway.
An officer was speaking to him quietly.
I watched his face.
He looked tired.
Not guilty.
Tired.
That bothered me.
Even now, even after everything, some part of me searched for the husband I knew.
The man who would be horrified.
The man who would apologize.
The man who would say there had been some terrible misunderstanding.
But Daniel was not looking at me.
He was looking at the evidence bag.
At the phone.
At the officers.
At every piece of the world he could no longer arrange.
In the ambulance, Noah sat across from me.
The flashing lights reflected against the window.
Neither of us spoke much.
There was nothing simple left to say.
At the hospital, the questions started again.
Nurses.
Doctors.
A detective who arrived around midnight.
Everyone wanted the same thing.
A timeline.
A reason.
A version of events that made sense.
The detective introduced herself as Marissa Cole.
She had a calm voice that did not rush.
That helped.
"I want to make sure I understand something," she said.
"Your husband left the room after you collapsed."
"Yes."
"And then returned?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
I looked at my hands.
"I don't know."
That was the hardest answer to give.
Not knowing.
For years, I had believed I knew my marriage.
I knew Daniel's moods.
His habits.
His worries.
Now every memory felt like a room with hidden doors.
Detective Cole placed a folder on the table.
"We found messages between your husband and your sister."
My body went still.
"Rachel?"
She nodded.
"Do you know why they were communicating?"
I looked at the folder.
"No."
"Did you know your husband was having financial difficulties?"
I looked up.
"I knew the business had been slower."
"How much slower?"
"I don't know."
The detective studied me.
"Your husband was facing a lawsuit from a former business partner."
I felt the air leave my lungs.
"What?"
"He was accused of misusing company funds."
"No."
The word came out automatically.
Not because I believed Daniel.
Because my mind rejected the shape of the information.
A lawsuit.
Misused funds.
Rachel.
Poison.
They were pieces from different lives.
They could not belong together.
But they did.
"Your sister appears to have known about the financial situation," Detective Cole said.
"Why would she know?"
The detective paused.
"We are still determining that."
The pause mattered.
I noticed it.
"Do you think she helped him?"
"I think we are looking at all possibilities."
I hated that answer.
Because it included the possibility I did not want to consider.
Rachel had been my sister my entire life.
She was the person who held my hand when our mother died.
She was the person who sat with me through my divorce before Daniel.
She was the person who gave a speech at my wedding.
The thought of her being involved felt like another betrayal waiting behind the first.
My phone was returned to me after they copied the information they needed.
I stared at the screen.
There were missed calls from Rachel.
Seven of them.
The latest message was simple.
Please call me before you hear it from someone else.
I showed it to Detective Cole.
She looked at it.
Then at me.
"Do you want to call her?"
I did not answer.
Because I wanted to.
And I did not.
Both feelings existed at the same time.
The detective stood.
When she left, Noah looked at the phone.
"Are you going to call her?"
I looked at my sister's name.
The person who might have saved us.
The person who might have helped him.
"I don't know."
Noah leaned back against the hospital pillow.
"That's the first honest thing anyone has said tonight."
I looked at him.
He gave a tired half smile.
It was the first sign of my son returning.
Only a small piece.
But enough.
I pressed the call button.
Rachel answered before the first ring finished.
She was crying.
"Are you okay?"
I closed my eyes.
The question I had wanted to hear all night came from the person I no longer trusted.
"Rachel," I said.
My voice broke.
"What did you know?"
"I knew he was going to do something," Rachel said.
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
I looked at Noah.
He was watching me carefully, trying to understand the half of the conversation he could hear.
"Something like what?" I asked.
Rachel took a shaky breath.
"I didn't know it would be this."
The answer hurt because it meant there had been something before the dinner.
There had been a moment when she knew my husband was dangerous.
And she had not come to me.
"When did you find out?" I asked.
"Three weeks ago."
I closed my eyes.
Three weeks.
For three weeks, I had lived in the same house with Daniel while my sister carried a secret.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I tried."
The words came quickly.
Too quickly.
"I called you."
"You called me about your garden."
There was silence.
A small, terrible silence.
Then Rachel started crying harder.
"Because he was standing right there."
I looked toward the hospital room door.
No one was there.
But suddenly I remembered every time Rachel had called and sounded distracted.
Every time she had changed the subject.
Every time she had said she was tired.
"What did he do to you?"
"Nothing."
The answer came immediately.
Then she corrected herself.
"Not exactly."
I waited.
May you like
Rachel had always been bad at telling painful truths.
She could talk about other people's problems for hours.
