Chương 4
“Yes, sir.”
“Send it to Detective Cho.”
“We’ll need a formal request or authorization from the account owner.”
“I’m the owner.”
There was another hesitation. “Mrs. Marlow is listed as the primary account holder.”
Adrian looked at Elena.
The villa had belonged to his parents. After his father died, Adrian had allowed Victoria to remain there and kept most household services under her name because changing them seemed petty. The decision had been made during a week when Noah refused to sleep and Adrian could not remember whether he had eaten.
Now it felt like a door he had forgotten to lock.
“Preserve it,” he said. “Do not delete anything.”
“We have standard retention procedures.”
“How long?”
“Thirty days.”
“Preserve it.”
“I can note the request.”
When the call ended, Adrian stood with the phone in his hand.
“She turned them off.”
“We don’t know that she was holding the tablet.”
“It was her profile.”
“That won’t prove she pushed me.”
“It proves she planned something.”
Elena turned her head toward the dark window. Her reflection looked pale and unfamiliar. A line of adhesive from the monitor had caught a strand of her hair.
“What was on the statement?” Adrian asked.
“Ask your mother.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I didn’t read all of it.”
“You said she wanted you to sign it.”
“She summarized it. I saw my name, Noah’s name, and language saying I had no basis to question transactions.”
“Where is it now?”
“On the glass table by the pool, unless she moved it.”
Adrian called Detective Cho.
The detective did not sound pleased to be awakened, but she listened. She told him officers had already photographed the pool area and collected a folder from the table.
“Did you arrest her?” he asked again.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she has agreed to an interview tomorrow morning, she has no known history of violence, and your wife is medically stable.”
“She can destroy records.”
“We’re addressing the records.”
“She can pressure witnesses.”
“We’re addressing that too.”
He turned away from Elena. “You don’t understand my mother.”
Detective Cho was silent long enough to make him hear himself.
“Then help me understand her without obstructing the investigation,” she said.
Afterward, Adrian apologized to Elena for being loud.
She told him she was tired.
He dimmed the lights and took the chair beside the bed. At some point, he fell asleep with one hand wrapped around the metal rail.
Elena did not sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes, she returned to the water. Not the fall. The moment beneath it, when she could see daylight and could not reach it. Her daughter moved once just before dawn, a slow pressure under Elena’s ribs.
Elena laid both hands over the movement.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Adrian woke immediately.
“For what?”
She shook her head.
He did not ask again.
The bleeding increased at seven sixteen in the morning.
It was not dramatic at first. A nurse saw it when helping Elena stand. Within minutes, the room filled with people speaking in short, precise phrases. The baby’s heartbeat dipped and recovered, then dipped again.
The obstetrician explained that they could continue monitoring, but the pattern suggested the placenta was separating further.
“We recommend delivery,” she said.
Elena stared at Adrian.
He had gone completely white.
“Today?” Elena asked.
“Now.”
The nurse handed Adrian a cap and shoe covers. His fingers could not manage the ties.
Elena tied the first one for him.
In the operating room, the lights were brighter than anything had a right to be. Adrian sat near her head after the spinal anesthesia took effect. He kept one hand against her cheek. She could hear the surgical team working and the anesthesiologist asking whether she felt nauseated.
She did.
Then there was pressure, movement, and a sudden absence inside her body.
The baby did not cry immediately.
Elena looked at Adrian.
He looked beyond the blue drape.
“Why isn’t she crying?”
The room seemed to narrow around the question.
Then a thin, furious sound rose from the warming station.
Adrian made a noise Elena had never heard from him. It was half laugh, half sob, quickly swallowed.
A nurse brought the baby close for less than a minute. She was small, red-faced, and wrapped beneath the arms. A clear mask covered her nose and mouth.
“This is your daughter,” the nurse said. “She needs a little help breathing, so we’re taking her to the neonatal unit.”
Elena touched one finger to the baby’s cheek.
The skin was softer than water.
“What’s her name?” the nurse asked.
Elena and Adrian had argued for three months. Elena liked Clara. Adrian liked June. Noah had suggested Lightning, then become offended when they rejected it.
Neither answered.
The nurse smiled gently. “You have time.”
They did not see their daughter again for four hours.
She was placed in an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit, receiving oxygen through a small nasal tube. The doctors said she was doing well for thirty-five weeks. They said many reassuring things. Elena heard each one and remained unconvinced.
Adrian stood beside the incubator in a clean shirt his assistant had brought from home. A bruise had appeared along his shoulder from striking the pool. He slipped one hand through the opening in the plastic wall and rested a finger beneath the baby’s palm.
Her hand closed around him.
He lowered his head.
Elena sat in a wheelchair beside him, weak from surgery and blood loss. The ache in her abdomen made every breath feel deliberate.
“We need to name her,” Adrian said.
“Not Lightning.”
“Noah will appeal.”
Elena almost laughed. It hurt too much.
The baby’s fingers remained curled around Adrian’s finger.
“June,” Elena said.
He looked at her. “You hate June.”
“I don’t hate it.”
“You said it sounded like a woman who owns six decorative pillows.”
“That was before she arrived in July.”
His mouth trembled.
May you like
“Clara June,” he said.
Elena looked at their daughter.
