Chương 2
The next morning, flowers arrived at her apartment.
The card said, I get jealous because I care too much.
At twenty-six, Claire had found the sentence romantic enough to forgive what had happened in the car.
At twenty-nine, standing behind her father while Ethan dripped champagne water onto marble, she could remember the card’s exact cream color.
Sirens were not audible yet.
Ethan looked around the room.
“These people don’t know what happened.”
Robert said nothing.
Ethan’s eyes went to the guests as though he had just remembered they existed.
“Claire slipped by the stairs,” he said. “I tried to catch her.”
A man near the glass wall shifted his weight.
Ethan noticed.
“You all saw her drinking.”
Claire’s hand tightened on the table.
She had consumed half a glass of champagne in two hours.
He knew that.
The lie was not meant for her.
That was another thing she had learned too late. Ethan’s lies were rarely built to convince the person who knew they were lies. They were built to give everyone else an easier explanation.
One of Robert’s old military friends, Frank Delaney, set down his drink.
“You should probably stop talking.”
Ethan gave him a wet smile.
“I appreciate the legal advice.”
“It wasn’t legal advice.”
Robert raised one hand without looking away from Ethan.
Frank fell silent.
“Claire,” Ethan said again.
Her father’s shoulders went rigid.
This time Claire stepped from behind him before he could block her.
Ethan’s face relaxed a little.
That frightened her more than his anger would have.
He expected her to help him.
Even now.
Especially now.
Claire looked at the water spreading from his shoes.
“You told me,” she said, and her voice came out thinner than she intended, “that if anyone asked, I tripped.”
Ethan’s expression did not change.
Robert turned his head toward her.
Claire swallowed.
“You said I was tired. You said I’d been drinking.”
“Because you were upset.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
It was not loud.
The word still felt like something tearing.
Ethan blinked.
Then he smiled in a way that did not reach his eyes.
“You’re confused.”
A guest near the cake looked at the floor.
Claire knew that phrase too.
Confused.
Overwhelmed.
Tired.
Sensitive.
Emotional.
Drunk.
Every word gave the person hearing it permission to distrust her before she finished speaking.
Her father’s voice came low beside her.
“Don’t answer him if you don’t want to.”
Claire looked at Robert.
He was furious. She could see it in the muscles beside his mouth.
But he was asking.
Not ordering.
That mattered.
For most of her childhood, Robert Bennett had treated questions as inefficient. He had spent thirty-four years in the Army and had brought parts of it home with him: shoes aligned beneath benches, keys always hung on the same brass hook, five-minute warnings before departures that were not really warnings.
Claire had learned to tease him about it.
Her mother, before she died, had been the only person who could make him laugh at himself.
“Colonel,” she used to say when he reorganized the dishwasher, “the plates are not under enemy control.”
After the funeral, Claire had stopped teasing him.
Robert had become more careful with her and somehow harder to reach.
When Claire introduced Ethan, Robert disliked him immediately.
That had not helped.
Claire had spent years defending Ethan partly because she loved him and partly because she hated the possibility that her father had been right.
The first blue light crossed the far wall.
Someone outside had arrived.
Ethan saw it.
His composure cracked again.
He looked at Claire, not Robert.
“You called them?”
She shook her head.
“Dad did.”
Something flickered behind Ethan’s eyes.
Relief, almost.
Claire understood why.
If Robert had called, Ethan could still tell himself this was Robert’s war.
Not hers.
Two police officers appeared beyond the front glass doors, escorted by the house manager. The music had been shut off. Without it, the room sounded too large. Heels scraped marble. Ice melted. Somebody coughed.
Robert did not move toward the officers.
Instead he turned to Claire.
“They’re going to ask you what happened.”
“I know.”
“You can tell them whatever is true.”
Ethan made a sound.
Not quite a laugh.
Robert looked at him.
“Don’t.”
One officer, a woman perhaps in her forties, approached first. Her partner stayed a few steps behind, scanning the room and then Ethan.
“Who called?”
“I did,” Robert said.
“I’m Colonel Robert Bennett. This is my daughter, Claire Bennett. That’s Ethan Cole.”
The officer’s eyes moved to Claire’s cheek.
“Ms. Bennett, can you come with me somewhere quieter?”
Ethan stepped forward.
The second officer immediately raised a hand.
“Sir, stay where you are.”
Ethan froze.
It was such a small command.
Claire had heard Ethan tell assistants, valets, contractors and waiters where to stand. She had watched him turn the placement of bodies into proof of rank.
Now a stranger had told him not to move.
And he didn’t.
Claire followed the female officer toward the hallway.
Her father started after them.
The officer looked at him.
“I need to speak with her alone.”
Robert stopped.
For one second, something like panic moved across his face.
Then he nodded.
“Of course.”
Claire walked down the hallway without him.
The quiet study beside the library had once belonged to her mother. Robert had changed almost nothing after her death. The shelves still held medical journals from a career in pediatric oncology. An old ceramic mug with a chipped blue rim still held pens nobody used.
The officer closed the door halfway.
“My name is Officer Moreno. I want to make sure you feel safe talking to me.”
Claire nodded.
“Are you injured anywhere besides your face and shoulder?”
“My ribs hurt.”
“How did that happen?”
Claire looked at the chipped mug.
The answer was simple.
That was the terrible part.
May you like
There was nothing confusing about the physical facts.
Ethan had grabbed her arm in their upstairs guest suite after accusing her of making him look stupid in front of Robert. Claire had pulled away. He had shoved her. Her shoulder struck the wall. She had told him to stop. He had slapped her.
