Chương 3
Mara closed her eyes for half a beat.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
It was the answer Louise gave too often.
Mara looked at her daughter.
“No, it isn’t.”
Karen shifted beside them.
Mara caught the movement.
“Don’t.”
Karen froze.
“I was adjusting my seat belt.”
Mara almost laughed.
The sound came out once and died in her throat.
The flight attendant glanced toward the front again.
“We’ll be landing in about forty minutes.”
Karen’s gaze snapped to her.
“In Denver?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not where I’m getting off.”
“It is where this aircraft is landing.”
“I mean I have a connection.”
The flight attendant’s face did not change.
“Then I suggest you remain calm and cooperative.”
Karen sat back.
Mara repositioned Noah against her shoulder and rubbed his back through the nursing cover.
His tiny hand escaped near her collarbone.
Five blunt fingers opened and closed against the beige knit of her cardigan.
Daniel had always laughed at those hands.
Baseball mitts, he called them.
The memory rose so clearly that Mara could almost hear him saying it from the seat behind her.
She turned toward the window instead.
Clouds filled the oval pane.
Nothing below them was visible.
“Mom.”
Louise spoke quietly.
Mara looked down.
“There’s more.”
Karen’s head turned.
“What?”
Louise hugged the tablet tighter.
“There are other files.”
Mara’s pulse stumbled.
“What files?”
“I don’t know.”
Karen leaned forward.
“Where?”
The flight attendant stepped between the seats with surprising speed.
“Ma’am.”
Karen sat back again.
Mara’s attention stayed on Louise.
“How do you know?”
“Dad says it in another video.”
“You watched another video?”
Louise nodded.
Mara felt anger before she could stop it.
Not at Louise exactly.
At the months behind them.
At the fact that her eight-year-old daughter had carried something alone while Mara forgot to buy milk and cried in parked cars and slept with Daniel’s old sweatshirt folded beneath her pillow like a teenager.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Louise’s chin trembled.
“I tried.”
Mara went still.
“When?”
“The night Grandma came over.”
Mara searched for the night.
There had been many nights when her mother came over.
Then she found it.
Two weeks after the funeral.
Noah had been screaming from gas.
Mara had not slept more than ninety minutes at a time.
Her mother had brought lasagna nobody ate.
Louise had stood in the kitchen doorway holding the tablet.
Mara had told her not now.
Not now, sweetheart.
Please.
Not now.
The memory hit with physical force.
Louise looked away.
“You said Dad’s stuff was making you sick.”
Mara’s eyes burned.
“I meant the boxes.”
“You said stuff.”
“I didn’t mean you couldn’t talk to me.”
“You were crying.”
Karen looked down at her hands.
The flight attendant stared at a point somewhere above them, granting a privacy none of them actually had.
Mara crouched as much as she could in the narrow aisle so her face was level with Louise’s.
“I should have listened.”
Louise shrugged.
That small shrug broke something.
Mara reached for her.
Louise resisted for perhaps one second, then stepped into her body.
Mara held her daughter with one arm and Noah with the other.
For a moment, nobody demanded anything.
The engines droned.
A seat belt buckle clicked somewhere nearby.
A child farther forward asked for pretzels.
Then Karen said, “He didn’t tell me he made videos.”
Louise pulled away first.
Mara stood.
“What exactly did he tell you?”
Karen rubbed her thumb hard over the side of her index finger.
“It wasn’t supposed to get this far.”
Mara’s voice cooled.
“What wasn’t?”
“The billing issue.”
Mara waited.
Karen looked toward the flight attendant.
“This is not something I’m discussing in front of an airline employee.”
“I don’t care about your billing issue.”
“You should.”
“Then talk.”
Karen hesitated.
“I worked in compliance.”
“Worked?”
“I was terminated.”
“When?”
Karen’s jaw moved.
“Three weeks after Daniel died.”
Mara felt the row of passengers around them paying attention without moving their heads.
“What was Daniel changing?”
“He wasn’t changing anything.”
“Then why did he say you were?”
“He said I was changing records.”
“That’s what I asked.”
“No, you asked what Daniel was changing.”
Mara pressed her lips together.
Karen had the irritating precision of someone accustomed to defending herself in rooms where wording mattered.
“Fine.”
Mara shifted Noah higher against her shoulder.
“What records were you changing?”
Karen’s eyes flicked toward Louise.
“I was correcting them.”
Daniel’s recorded voice seemed to return between them.
You can’t keep changing the records, Karen.
“Correcting what?”
“Procedure codes.”
Mara said nothing.
Karen exhaled.
“The clinic network was being reviewed internally.”
“What clinic network?”
“The one Daniel managed operations for.”
“I know where my husband worked.”
Karen flushed.
“I meant the parent group.”
Mara had heard Daniel complain about corporate ownership often enough, usually while standing at the kitchen counter and eating cereal at eleven at night.
He had called the executives spreadsheet people.
At the time, it had sounded like ordinary work frustration.
“What were you correcting?”
“Claims.”
“Fraud?”
Karen’s eyes hardened.
“Be careful.”
Mara stared at her.
“My husband is dead.”
Karen looked away.
“So don’t tell me to be careful with vocabulary.”
The flight attendant shifted her weight but did not interrupt.
Karen rubbed her forehead.
“There were irregularities.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t know what it means yet.”
“You were in compliance.”
“I was one person in compliance.”
“And Daniel?”
“He started noticing patterns.”
“What patterns?”
“Cases where documentation didn’t match what was billed.”
Mara’s stomach tightened.
“Why would an operations manager care?”
“Because the documents were being changed after his staff submitted them.”
Mara saw Daniel at their dining table three nights before his death, laptop open, jaw tense, saying he needed to fix something stupid at work before payroll closed.
She had barely listened.
Noah had not been born yet.
She had been eight months pregnant, swollen and angry at everything.
May you like
She had told Daniel to stop bringing the office home.
He had closed the laptop.
