Chương 2
“Rosa’s in the guest room with his bag. I’m taking him to her, and then I’m coming back.”
“Claire,” Ethan said, “you don’t have to come back.”
She looked at him.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you really don’t.”
Something about the way he said it frightened her more than his confession had.
Victoria heard it too.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Ethan looked away.
Claire opened the conservatory door.
The warmer air from the penthouse moved across her damp arms.
Noah mumbled, “My dinosaur.”
“It’s downstairs.”
“Green one.”
“I know.”
“The other green one.”
Despite everything, Claire almost smiled.
“You own four green dinosaurs.”
“The biting one.”
“Of course.”
She carried him down the short hall toward the guest wing.
Behind her, nobody spoke.
That silence followed her farther than shouting would have.
Rosa was sitting on the edge of the guest-room bed with one shoe off and a paperback open in her lap. She stood immediately when Claire entered.
“What happened?”
“Family argument.”
Rosa looked at Claire’s face.
“Bad one?”
“Yes.”
Noah reached for her.
Rosa took him without another question.
“I want the biting dinosaur,” he told her.
“We’ll find him.”
“He’s green.”
“That narrows it down.”
Noah considered this.
Claire touched his curls.
“I’m going to talk to Daddy for a few minutes.”
“No.”
The word was quiet.
Claire stopped.
Noah wrapped both arms around her neck.
“No, Mommy.”
She closed her eyes.
Rosa looked away.
Children had terrible timing for becoming perceptive.
Claire kissed his cheek.
“I’ll be right down the hall.”
“No thunder.”
“I can’t fix the thunder.”
“Daddy can.”
Claire opened her eyes.
“No, baby. Daddy can’t fix thunder either.”
Noah seemed troubled by this new limitation in his father’s abilities.
Claire gave him to Rosa again.
“Put on the whale movie if he wants it.”
“He always wants it.”
“No,” Noah protested. “Dinosaur.”
Rosa sighed solemnly. “Negotiations have begun.”
This time Claire did smile.
It lasted perhaps a second.
Then she walked back toward the conservatory.
She opened her fist on the way.
The bracelet lay against her palm.
E.M.
Emily Morgan.
Ethan Morgan.
That had been the first problem with the initials.
The second was that Emily had hated bracelets.
Claire had known that.
Everyone had known that.
Emily wore rings, usually too many of them, and a battered silver watch she had owned since college. At Christmas, Victoria once gave her a diamond tennis bracelet, and Emily wore it for exactly eleven minutes before taking it off because, as she put it, “I can hear myself becoming someone who says summer in the Hamptons without irony.”
Victoria had been offended.
Ethan had laughed so hard he spilled wine.
Claire had forgotten that evening until now.
She stopped in the hallway.
Why had Emily owned this one?
Why had Claire never asked?
Because seven months ago she had been afraid.
That answer was embarrassingly simple.
Emily had come to Claire’s apartment at 11:42 on a Tuesday night while Ethan was supposedly in Chicago.
She had been soaked from the rain.
Not crying.
Emily almost never cried in front of people.
She had stood inside the apartment holding the bracelet in one fist and said, “If Ethan asks whether you saw me, lie.”
Claire had laughed at first.
Emily had not.
Then she had placed the bracelet in Claire’s hand.
“Keep this somewhere he won’t look.”
“What is it?”
“Insurance.”
“Against what?”
Emily had looked past her toward the hallway leading to Noah’s room.
“Against my brother deciding fear is the same thing as permission.”
Claire had stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t have time.”
“You came to my home in the middle of the night. Make time.”
Emily had almost smiled.
There had been affection in it.
And pity.
Claire hated remembering the pity most.
“If I’m wrong,” Emily had said, “you get to make fun of me forever.”
“And if you’re right?”
“Then don’t trust him just because he sounds calm.”
Three days later, Emily disappeared.
Claire returned to the conservatory.
Victoria was standing exactly where Claire had left her.
Ethan had moved to the windows.
“Close the door,” Victoria said.
Claire did.
Victoria looked at the bracelet in her hand.
“Start at the beginning.”
Ethan turned from the glass.
“Mom, she doesn’t know the beginning.”
“Then perhaps you should provide it.”
He gave a tired shake of his head.
“Not like this.”
Victoria laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“I’m fascinated by your concern for procedure.”
“Because this can get worse.”
“Emily is dead.”
Ethan looked at her.
“Maybe.”
The room seemed to contract.
Victoria did not move.
Claire heard herself say, “What?”
Ethan rubbed his face.
“I don’t know.”
“You told me she was dead.”
“I told you what the police believed.”
“No. You told me she was dead.”
“Claire—”
“You stood in our kitchen and told me they found blood in her car.”
“They did.”
“You said there was too much for her to have survived.”
“That’s what I was told.”
“By whom?”
He hesitated.
Victoria stepped toward him.
“By whom?”
“Daniel.”
Victoria went still.
Claire knew Daniel Mercer as Ethan’s oldest friend and the Morgan family’s attorney. He had been at their wedding. He had held Noah in the hospital the day after he was born. He had brought takeout to Victoria’s apartment during the first week of Emily’s disappearance and dealt with reporters when the case briefly became local news.
Victoria said, “Daniel told you that?”
“Yes.”
“And you believed him?”
“At the time.”
“At the time?”
Ethan looked toward Claire.
She saw the calculation again.
“How long have you known that might not be true?”
“Three weeks.”
Claire’s stomach turned.
“Three weeks.”
“I was trying to confirm it.”
“You came home every night.”
“I know.”
“You ate dinner with us.”
“I know.”
“You gave Noah a bath.”
“I know.”
“You slept beside me.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
May you like
Ethan closed his mouth.
Victoria walked to the marble table and braced both hands against it.
