Chương 8
She had told her because Rachel was alive enough to be a threat to the lie.
Charles stood.
Vanessa grabbed his sleeve.
“Please.”
He looked at her hand.
She released him.
“I’m going to tell the police everything.”
Charles said nothing.
“I want you to hear that from me.”
“Why?”
She looked exhausted.
“Because I’m tired.”
He almost hated her more for sounding human.
“Rachel was tired too.”
“I know.”
“No. You saw it. That’s different.”
Vanessa covered her face.
Charles left her there.
He called Nina from the sidewalk.
“I met Vanessa.”
There was silence.
Then, “You astonishingly arrogant—”
“She confessed.”
Nina stopped.
“Not formally.”
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
He did.
She swore.
“Did you record it?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Charles blinked.
“I thought you’d be angry.”
“I’m furious. But an undisclosed recording can complicate things depending on circumstances, and I prefer evidence gathered properly.”
“She says she’ll confess.”
“She may. Or her lawyer may explain consequences to her and she may change her mind.”
“She admitted Rachel escaped in January.”
Nina went quiet.
“I’ll tell Ortiz.”
“Rachel needs to know.”
“Yes.”
“From me.”
“No.”
Charles stopped walking.
“She’s my wife.”
“And this is not your information to drop on her without support because you need to feel useful.”
He looked across the river.
Nina’s voice softened slightly.
“I know that was cruel.”
“It was accurate.”
“Sometimes those overlap.”
Rachel was furious anyway.
Not because Charles had learned about January.
Because he had met Vanessa.
“You promised nothing,” Charles said.
“I shouldn’t have needed to make you promise.”
“That is not how promises work.”
Rachel stared at him from the furnished apartment Nina had arranged through a friend.
“You always do this.”
Charles almost snapped back.
Then stopped.
“Do what?”
“You decide action is the same thing as help.”
He looked around.
The apartment was small. Two bedrooms. Cheap prints on the walls. A refrigerator covered in magnets left by the owner.
Rachel sat at the kitchen table wearing borrowed sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Without the cleaner’s uniform and mask, she looked smaller than Charles remembered.
Lily colored beside her.
Charles lowered his voice.
“She had information.”
“You didn’t know that before you went.”
“No.”
“So you went for yourself.”
That hurt.
He leaned against the counter.
“Yes.”
Rachel looked surprised.
Charles rubbed his jaw.
“I needed to hear her say it.”
“Why?”
“Because I trusted her.”
Rachel’s expression changed.
“I know.”
“No, I mean really trusted her.”
“I know, Charles.”
He looked at his wife.
Rachel closed the coloring book in front of Lily.
“Hey, bug?”
Lily looked up.
“Can you take these to your room and pick which one goes on the refrigerator?”
“There isn’t anything on the refrigerator.”
“That’s why it needs art.”
Lily gathered her pencils and pages.
At the bedroom door she turned.
“Are you going to yell?”
Rachel answered, “No.”
Charles said, “Probably not.”
Rachel glared at him.
Lily smiled despite herself.
After the door closed, Rachel looked down.
“I used to be jealous of her.”
“Vanessa?”
She nodded.
“I hated how easy you were with her. She could tell you you were being an idiot and you’d laugh. If I told you, we’d argue for two hours.”
Charles considered.
“You had higher standards.”
“That is a terrible answer.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
The words were not forgiveness.
They were not contempt either.
Charles sat across from her.
“Why didn’t you trust me enough to show me the foundation records before Pennsylvania?”
Rachel took a long time.
“Because when Vanessa said I was paranoid, you agreed with her.”
“I said you were stressed.”
“You asked whether I had missed therapy appointments.”
He remembered.
Rachel rubbed the edge of the table.
“You weren’t wrong that I was struggling. That’s what made it worse. Every time I tried to talk about the invoices, the conversation turned into whether I was sleeping.”
Charles stared at the floor.
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded once.
He waited for more.
Nothing came.
“Is that all?”
Rachel looked almost offended.
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.”
A pencil rolled from Lily’s room and clicked against the hallway wall.
Neither of them moved.
Charles said, “Vanessa told me you escaped in January.”
Rachel stopped rubbing the table.
“Nina told you?”
“Vanessa.”
Rachel looked toward the bedroom.
“She found me at the bus station.”
“Eric.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I called you.”
Charles’s body went cold.
“What?”
“The phone at the station.”
“I never got a call.”
“I know.”
“What number?”
“Your cell.”
“Rachel, I never—”
“I know.”
She stood and walked toward the window.
Charles followed with his eyes.
“It rang twice,” she said. “Then a woman answered.”
“Vanessa.”
“I thought so.”
Charles shook his head.
“My phone has biometric lock.”
“She didn’t need your phone.”
He stared.
Rachel looked back.
“Call forwarding. SIM replacement. Account access. I don’t know. She handled the family wireless account after your mother died, remember?”
Charles did.
For years, Vanessa had handled the shared business-family plan because nobody cared enough to move the numbers.
He felt ill.
“What did she say?”
Rachel crossed her arms.
“She said, ‘Charles can’t talk to you.’”
“That’s it?”
“I said I was in danger. She said Charles knew exactly where I was.”
Charles sat down.
Rachel looked at him.
“I believed her.”
He could not blame her.
Not completely.
Rachel continued.
“Then Eric came through the station doors.”
“Did anyone see?”
“Probably. But I wasn’t screaming by then.”
“Why?”
“She told me Lily was with her.”
Charles closed his eyes.
“She said if I made another public scene, she’d tell the police I was unstable and trying to abduct my own child.”
Rachel laughed once.
“I know how stupid that sounds now.”
May you like
“It doesn’t.”
“I had no phone. No ID. I was wearing someone else’s coat. I hadn’t slept. My wrist was swollen. I thought if police arrived, Vanessa would be the calm woman with documents and I’d be the crazy person shouting.”
