Chương 7
“My daughter was missing.”
“I know.”
“Ethan was stealing.”
“I know.”
“And somehow your solution was secrecy.”
Daniel’s face hardened for the first time.
“You want the truth? Fine. Your husband built an empire with liabilities hidden inside liabilities. Ethan inherited a company that looked solvent because everyone around Charles Morgan was paid very well not to ask certain questions. Emily found one piece and pulled on it. Ethan panicked. I panicked. We all thought we could contain it.”
Victoria stared at him.
“Do not include me in your ‘we.’”
Daniel looked at her.
“You benefited from it.”
The words landed.
Ethan said, “Enough.”
“No,” Victoria said. “Let him.”
Daniel’s anger had arrived late, but now it was visible.
“The apartment you live in. The foundation with your name on it. The dinners where people thank you for generosity. You think none of that came from Charles making ugly decisions?”
“I knew my husband was difficult.”
“Difficult.”
Daniel laughed.
“You knew he ruined people.”
Victoria’s face tightened.
“You know nothing about my marriage.”
“I know what I had to settle after he died.”
“You were twenty-nine.”
“I was old enough to read.”
Claire looked at Ethan.
He was not watching Daniel.
He was watching his mother.
Something old was breaking between them.
Not trust exactly.
Perhaps the family agreement about which dead person they were allowed to remember.
Claire’s phone vibrated.
Everyone looked at her.
She pulled it from her dress pocket.
Unknown number.
A message.
DO NOT GIVE DANIEL THE BRACELET.
Claire stopped breathing.
Ethan saw her face.
“What?”
She showed him.
Daniel stepped forward.
Claire moved back.
“Don’t.”
His expression changed.
“I wasn’t—”
“Stay there.”
Victoria came beside Claire.
“Who sent it?”
“No idea.”
Another message arrived.
ASK HIM WHERE THE SECOND PHONE IS.
Claire read it aloud.
Daniel’s face lost all color.
Ethan turned toward him.
“Where is it?”
Daniel said nothing.
“Emily’s second phone. Where is it?”
“I don’t have it.”
The phone vibrated again.
HE DOES.
Claire looked at Daniel.
He sat down.
Not dramatically.
His knees simply seemed to stop cooperating.
Victoria whispered, “Emily?”
Claire’s hands shook.
She typed.
Who is this?
The reply came almost immediately.
A photograph.
No face.
A hand holding a newspaper.
Tonight’s date was visible at the top.
Around the wrist was a silver bracelet engraved E.M.
Victoria made a sound Claire had never heard from another human being.
Not a cry.
Not quite.
Something lower.
She reached for the phone and stopped herself before touching it.
“Emily.”
Daniel stared at the photograph.
“Oh, God.”
Ethan grabbed his phone.
Claire caught his wrist.
“No.”
“That’s my sister.”
“And somebody told us not to trust Daniel.”
“I’m calling the police.”
Daniel stood.
“No.”
Ethan rounded on him.
“Say that again.”
“If Emily is alive and has stayed hidden for seven months, there is a reason.”
Claire’s phone vibrated.
There was an address.
A storage facility in Brooklyn.
Under it:
6 A.M. CLAIRE ONLY. BRING THE BRACELET. IF ANYONE FOLLOWS YOU, I LEAVE.
Ethan read it over her shoulder.
“No.”
Claire looked at him.
“You don’t decide.”
“Claire, absolutely not.”
“You lost that sentence sometime around the twelve million dollars.”
“This could be anyone.”
“Yes.”
“It could be a trap.”
“Yes.”
“You have Noah.”
That stopped her.
Not because Ethan was right to control her.
Because Noah existed.
Because he was asleep downstairs with a plastic dinosaur and no understanding that the adults responsible for keeping his world stable had apparently spent years making decisions in secret rooms.
Claire looked at the message again.
Victoria said, “I’ll go.”
The phone vibrated.
NOT VICTORIA.
Victoria closed her eyes.
Claire typed.
How do I know you’re Emily?
The answer took longer.
Then:
YOU TOLD ME ETHAN SNORES ONLY WHEN HE DRINKS RED WINE AND I SAID THAT WAS THE MOST EXPENSIVE MARRIAGE PROBLEM I’D EVER HEARD.
Claire sat down.
That conversation had happened in a restroom at Victoria’s birthday dinner two years earlier.
No phones.
No one else present.
Emily had been fixing Claire’s dress zipper.
Claire whispered, “It’s her.”
Victoria put one hand over her mouth.
Ethan turned away.
His shoulders moved once.
Claire had seen him cry only twice.
The first time was when Noah was born.
The second was at Emily’s memorial.
Now she did not know what his tears meant.
Relief.
Guilt.
Fear.
Perhaps all three.
Daniel looked at Claire.
“If you go, don’t take your phone.”
She stared at him.
“You are not giving advice.”
“I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“From whom?”
Daniel looked at Ethan.
Then Victoria.
Finally back at Claire.
“From the reason Emily stayed gone.”
At five forty the next morning, the storm had passed.
Claire had not slept.
Neither had anyone else.
Daniel remained in the conservatory because Ethan refused to let him leave until the police could be contacted, and Daniel refused to let Ethan contact them until Claire met Emily.
It would have been almost funny if the consequences had not been so large.
They compromised badly, which was how most real compromises happened.
Victoria called a criminal attorney she trusted independently of Daniel. The attorney, Miriam Cole, arrived at four fifteen wearing jeans, loafers, and the expression of a woman who had been awakened to discover that rich people had once again confused secrecy with strategy.
She listened for twenty minutes.
Then she said, “Nobody touches the bracelet. Nobody deletes anything. Nobody calls anyone connected to Morgan Hale. Claire decides whether Claire goes.”
Ethan protested.
Miriam looked at him.
“Are you currently under the impression that you are the reliable decision-maker in this room?”
He stopped.
Claire liked her immediately, which she knew was not necessarily wise.
At five thirty, Rosa brought Noah upstairs.
He was sleepy and furious about socks.
“I don’t want gray.”
“They’re socks,” Claire said.
“Blue.”
“The blue ones are dirty.”
“Wash them.”
“At five thirty in the morning?”
“Yes.”
Rosa hid a smile.
May you like
Claire crouched in front of her son.
For several seconds, she simply looked at him.
