Chương 3
“You knew his mom?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Before Mom?”
“Yes.”
“Did you love her?”
Daniel stared at the closed conference-room door.
“I thought I did.”
Sophie considered this. “That sounds like no.”
“It is not a simple question.”
“You say that when you don’t want to answer.”
At the other end of the hall, Celia closed her eyes as Camille spoke.
Daniel sat on a padded bench. His knees felt unreliable.
“When I knew Nora, I was not very good at knowing the difference between loving someone and liking how I felt when she was around.”
Sophie sat beside him. “That still sounds like no.”
“It may be the most honest answer I have.”
She smoothed the skirt of her dress. “Is Eli my brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“He looks like you when you’re mad.”
“I am not angry.”
“That’s how you look when you’re the most angry.”
The door opened. Renee came out alone.
She asked Daniel to speak with her near the window.
“Eli says his mother prepared him for the possibility that she might be arrested,” she said. “He knows your full name, the hotel, and the gala schedule. He also has a folded photocopy of a photograph showing you and Ms. Bell together.”
Daniel’s stomach tightened.
“May I see it?”
“He won’t release it. I don’t recommend forcing the issue.”
“Was he living at the motel?”
“For eleven days. Before that they were in Richmond. Before that, he says, different places. We’ll verify what we can. He reports intermittent schooling, mostly online lessons managed by his mother. There are concerns, but he does not describe abuse by her.”
“The bruise?”
“He says one of the arresting officers pushed open the motel door while he was behind it. That will be reviewed.”
Daniel looked toward Marcus. “Get the motel surveillance preserved.”
Renee’s expression cooled. “Do not conduct a private investigation around an active child-welfare matter.”
“I asked for footage to be preserved, not stolen.”
“You’re a wealthy man in a room full of employees who react when you move your hand. The distinction may feel clearer to you than it does to everyone else.”
Daniel almost replied. Then he looked through the glass wall at Eli sitting alone beside the walnut table, his feet tucked beneath the chair.
“What happens now?”
“Ms. Bell is in custody. There is no verified relative available. Eli will be placed in an emergency foster home tonight.”
“He can stay with me.”
“You are not legally established as his father.”
“I’ll submit to a test.”
“That will help later.”
“Later is not tonight.”
“No,” Renee said. “It isn’t.”
Daniel’s frustration rose with the familiar heat of being told that authority had reached its limit. He knew how to buy speed from construction crews, lawyers, laboratories, and banks. He could not purchase a child-welfare investigator’s permission without proving every suspicion she might hold about him.
“What can I do tonight?”
“Give him your contact information. Cooperate. Do not make promises you may not be allowed to keep.”
“I can go with him.”
“To the foster home? No.”
“To booking. To see his mother.”
“That would be your choice, assuming the police allow it. He will not be joining you.”
Daniel glanced at the conference room again.
Eli was watching him.
The boy could not hear the conversation, but his face said he already knew the result.
Camille arrived twenty minutes later in navy scrubs beneath a wool coat. She had left the hospital without changing and still carried the faint antiseptic smell Sophie associated with overnight shifts.
She knelt to examine Sophie’s face and hands as though scandal might leave a visible wound.
“You’re coming with me,” she said.
Sophie looked at Daniel. “Are you going to find his mom?”
“Yes.”
Camille stood. “That is not an answer you need to give her tonight.”
“It was the question she asked.”
“It was a question an eight-year-old asked because she has watched a stranger claim her father in a room full of cameras.”
Sophie winced.
Camille saw it and softened. “Sweetheart, get your coat from Celia.”
After Sophie left, Camille faced Daniel.
“I am not asking whether you slept with Nora Bell. The arithmetic is insulting enough.”
“I don’t know if Eli is mine.”
“But it is possible.”
“Yes.”
“How possible?”
Daniel looked at the carpet.
Camille gave a small, humorless laugh. “You always did become fascinated by flooring at the worst moments.”
“Nora told me she was pregnant.”
Camille stopped moving.
“She said she wasn’t keeping it,” Daniel continued. “Then the company accused her of stealing money. She disappeared.”
“And you never looked for her?”
“I had someone try.”
“Someone your father chose?”
Daniel did not answer.
Camille’s mouth tightened.
“You will not bring that boy into Sophie’s life and then vanish from his because the truth is inconvenient,” she said. “And you will not use Sophie to make yourself feel like a better man while you decide.”
“I know.”
“No. You know how to say that. I’m not sure you know it.”
Sophie returned wearing her white coat. She held something behind her back.
She approached Eli, who now stood beside Renee near the elevators.
“These might fit,” Sophie said.
She produced a pair of gray hotel slippers from the conference room.
Eli looked at them, then at her cream shoes.
“They’re not mine,” Sophie added. “The hotel gives them away.”
He took the slippers without thanking her.
Sophie did not seem offended.
“They’re slippery on marble,” she said. “So don’t run.”
Eli’s lower lip moved once.
Renee guided him toward the service elevator. He looked back at Daniel.
“Are you going to get her?”
“I’m going to find out where she is.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Daniel felt Camille watching him.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m going to get to her.”
Renee’s expression warned him about promises.
May you like
The elevator doors closed on Eli’s face.
By the time Daniel reached central booking, the gala video had been viewed more than two million times.
