Chương 6
Adrian stood. “What did my mother say?”
“She asked about Elena.”
“Only Elena?”
Lucia folded the top of the paper bag twice, though it was already closed.
“She asked whether Mr. Cho had spoken to us.”
“Detective Cho,” Noah corrected.
Lucia looked at him. “Yes.”
“What else?” Adrian asked.
“She reminded me that the cottage is part of my employment.”
Elena’s hand tightened around the sheet.
Adrian said, “You and Mateo will not lose your housing.”
Lucia’s expression did not soften. “You cannot promise that.”
“I can.”
“The property is in your mother’s name.”
“I’ll arrange something else.”
“And my sister? She works at the foundation clinic. Mateo’s wife is there too. Mrs. Marlow helped with their papers years ago. She helped when Mateo’s son was sick. People are not one thing, Adrian.”
He flinched at the use of his first name. Lucia had not called him that since he was a teenager.
“She pushed Elena.”
“I saw her holding Elena’s arm.”
“Did you see her force her backward?”
Lucia looked at Elena.
“Do not answer for me,” Elena said. “Answer for yourself.”
Lucia swallowed. “I saw Mrs. Marlow pull you. I saw you try to step forward. Then Mateo spoke, and I looked at him. I heard the splash.”
“What did Mateo say?” Adrian asked.
“He said, ‘She turned them off.’”
“The cameras?”
Lucia nodded.
“Why would he know?”
“Because he saw her with the tablet after lunch. He asked if the alarm was broken. She told him not to concern himself.”
Adrian reached for his phone.
Lucia stepped closer. “Please do not call him now.”
“Why?”
“Because he is deciding whether to tell the truth, and you will make it sound like a command.”
Adrian lowered the phone.
Lucia rubbed one thumb along the edge of her purse. “Mrs. Marlow has been good to my family. She has also been cruel. Both are true. I need time to understand what I can live with.”
“You saw Elena in the water.”
“I see her every time I close my eyes.”
“Then what is there to decide?”
Lucia’s face tightened. “What becomes of my husband if we lose the cottage? What becomes of my sister’s job? What becomes of Mateo’s family? You have never had to calculate truth against rent.”
Adrian’s anger collapsed into shame.
“No,” he said. “I haven’t.”
Lucia looked toward Elena. “I will speak to the detective again. I will tell her exactly what I saw.”
“Thank you,” Elena said.
“Do not thank me yet.”
Lucia unpacked the sandwiches. She had brought turkey for Adrian, grilled cheese for Noah, and broth Elena was not allowed to eat until the doctor cleared her.
For several minutes, no one discussed the pool.
Noah complained that the grilled cheese had tomato in it. Lucia said tomato was not poison. He said that had not been proven. Elena watched Adrian peel the tomato slices from the sandwich with the solemn concentration of a surgeon.
Ordinary irritation entered the room and made it briefly survivable.
Victoria came to the hospital that afternoon.
She did not enter Elena’s room. She waited in the hallway with her attorney, a silver-haired man named Paul Givens who had represented the Marlow family through divorces, acquisitions, a yacht collision, and one unpleasant dispute involving a vineyard fence.
Adrian saw them through the narrow window in the door.
“No,” he said.
Victoria looked past him toward the bed.
“I came to see my granddaughter.”
“You don’t have a granddaughter.”
Her face moved as though he had struck her.
Elena said, “Adrian.”
He did not turn.
Victoria lowered her voice. “You are upset.”
“My wife was cut open this morning because you put her in the water.”
“I tried to stop her from falling.”
“Then why did you turn off the cameras?”
“For privacy.”
“Why did you send Lucia and Mateo away?”
“I gave them work.”
“Why did you write a statement blaming Elena for finding missing money?”
Paul Givens stepped forward. “This is not an appropriate conversation in a hospital corridor.”
Adrian looked at him. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“I am protecting my client.”
“That sentence has covered a lot of rot in this family.”
Victoria removed one glove finger by finger. She still dressed as if every public space might contain a photographer.
“Elena,” she called past him, “I am deeply sorry you were hurt.”
Elena could see only part of Victoria’s face through the doorway.
“Were you sorry before or after he came outside?” she asked.
Victoria’s gaze shifted to her.
“I know you believe something terrible happened.”
“No. I know something terrible happened.”
“You were emotional.”
“I was eight months pregnant and being forced toward deep water. Emotion was appropriate.”
Paul said, “Mrs. Marlow, we should leave.”
Victoria ignored him. “I have loved Adrian his entire life. I helped raise Noah when his mother died. I welcomed you despite considerable concerns, and you have repaid that by turning my son against me over bookkeeping you do not understand.”
Elena felt the old instinct rise: explain, soften, prove she was reasonable. It had carried her through three years of lunches where Victoria mistook insults for advice.
She let the instinct pass.
“You don’t get to visit Clara,” she said.
Victoria’s lips parted.
“You don’t get to ask Noah what he saw. You don’t call Lucia. You don’t send messages through anyone. You stay away from us.”
“You cannot erase me.”
“No,” Elena said. “You did that yourself.”
Adrian closed the door.
He leaned against it after Victoria left, his eyes shut.
Elena watched the pulse in his neck.
“She’s still your mother,” she said.
“Don’t defend her.”
“I’m not.”
“It sounds like it.”
“I’m saying this hurts you.”
He opened his eyes. “She could have killed you.”
“Yes.”
“She could have killed Clara.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re worried about my feelings.”
“I’m worried about what you do with them.”
May you like
He stared at her.
“When Rachel died,” Elena said, “you stopped sleeping. You fired your assistant because she moved a meeting. You tried to buy Noah a horse.”
