Chương 5
“I need you to tell me what not to touch.”
There was a pause.
“Start over.”
Claire did.
Not every detail.
Just enough.
Denise did not react dramatically.
Lawyers had a way of making catastrophe sound administrative.
“Do not send yourself anything from the devices. Do not delete anything. Photograph the exterior of the phones and the folder where they are, without opening more files. Ask the lodge to preserve security footage. Put the documents somewhere secure. Do not give originals to anyone who may be involved.”
Claire looked through the open office door.
Evelyn sat alone at the table.
Richard stood by the windows.
Sophie was collecting scattered papers into a neat pile.
“Can I leave?”
“Yes.”
“Should I?”
Another pause.
“That is not a legal question.”
Claire leaned her forehead against the wall.
“Right.”
“Do you feel physically safe?”
She looked at Ethan’s empty place in the room.
“Yes.”
“Then decide what you need for the next hour, not the next year.”
Claire closed her eyes.
The next hour.
That she could understand.
She returned to the room and asked Melissa for two large envelopes, tape, and a permanent marker.
Nobody argued while Claire placed the burner phone in one envelope and the documents in another.
Evelyn watched every movement.
“This is ridiculous.”
Claire wrote the date and time across the seal.
“Probably.”
“You’re treating me like a criminal.”
Claire capped the marker.
“I’m treating you like someone who forged my signature.”
“I did not forge it.”
“Who did?”
Evelyn’s silence became an answer by refusing to become one.
Richard sat across from his wife.
“Who did?”
She looked at him.
“Do you really want to do this here?”
“There is no wedding anymore.”
He said it more quietly this time.
Evelyn flinched.
That was the first thing Claire had seen penetrate her.
Not fraud.
Not exposure.
The wedding.
Perhaps because weddings were public proof of something Evelyn desperately wanted to believe about her family.
Perhaps because she had spent months arranging flowers and seating charts around a disaster she thought she could control.
People could be monstrous and ordinary at once.
Claire was beginning to understand that.
Melissa found the lodge safe.
Claire locked the envelopes inside and kept the key.
Sophie handed her Ethan’s regular phone.
“What about this?”
Claire looked at the screen.
A message preview had appeared.
ETHAN: Where are you?
It was sent to Sophie.
Claire handed the phone back.
“You answer.”
Sophie stared at her.
“What do I say?”
“I don’t care.”
That was a lie.
Claire cared about everything.
She simply could not carry another decision.
Sophie typed.
Where are you?
The response came almost immediately.
Parking garage in town. I need to talk to Mom alone.
Sophie showed the screen to Richard.
He gave a short, bitter laugh.
“Of course he does.”
Evelyn stood.
“I’ll go.”
“No,” Richard said.
“He’s my son.”
“He’s my son too.”
“Then act like it.”
Richard’s head jerked back.
Evelyn seemed to regret the sentence before it finished leaving her mouth.
Sophie looked down.
Claire walked toward the bridal suite.
Nobody stopped her.
Upstairs, the room looked obscene.
White roses.
Champagne.
Three garment bags.
A silver tray with untouched sandwiches.
Claire’s veil lay across the bed.
She had taken it off before going outside because Sophie said the wind might catch it.
She sat beside it.
For several minutes she did nothing.
Then she picked up half a turkey sandwich and ate it.
She did not want it.
Her body did.
That irritated her.
She chewed while staring at the television, which was showing a silent weather map.
A knock came at the door.
Sophie stepped inside.
“Can I sit?”
Claire shrugged.
Sophie sat on the carpet instead of the chair.
Her dress wrinkled beneath her.
“My mom is downstairs trying to convince Dad that the folder was part of a business contingency plan.”
Claire swallowed.
“Was it?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
Claire stared at the sandwich.
“People keep saying that.”
“I know.”
“Do they teach that at weddings?”
Sophie gave an involuntary snort.
Then covered her mouth.
Claire started laughing.
It hurt.
The laughter lasted maybe four seconds.
Then both women became quiet again.
Sophie picked at a loose thread near her knee.
“I should have said something about the transfer.”
“You didn’t know what it was.”
“I knew it was weird.”
“So?”
“I let Mom tell me I was being dramatic.”
Claire looked at her.
Sophie’s eyes were wet, but she was not crying.
“She does that,” Sophie said. “She turns every question into a personality defect.”
Claire leaned back against the headboard.
Outside, rain tapped the glass.
“My mother used to do the opposite.”
“What’s the opposite?”
“She turned every personality defect into a question.”
Sophie smiled faintly.
“What does that mean?”
“If I was rude, she’d ask why I felt entitled to be rude. If I lied, she’d ask what I was afraid of. It was exhausting.”
“She sounds terrifying.”
“She was.”
Claire looked at her mother’s earrings reflected in the dark television.
“She would have hated Ethan.”
Sophie did not rush to defend her brother.
That mattered.
Claire took another bite.
“Did you know about Nora?”
“No.”
“Did Richard?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you think your mother knew the whole time?”
Sophie rubbed her thumb against the thread in her dress until it snapped.
“I think she knew enough.”
Claire looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
“My brother has always had... versions.”
“Versions of what?”
“Himself.”
Sophie’s gaze moved toward the rain.
“At home, he was the responsible one. With Dad, he was the future of the company. With Mom, he was the only person who understood how hard she worked. With me, he was the guy who knew everyone was ridiculous.”
“And with Nora?”
“I don’t know.”
“With me?”
Sophie’s mouth tightened.
“I don’t know.”
Claire hated her for saying it.
Then loved her a little for not lying.
May you like
At five seventeen, Richard came upstairs.
He knocked despite the open door.
