Chương 2
Nathaniel’s jaw tightened. “You are not a judge anymore.”
“No.”
“You have no power here.”
“That may be the first accurate thing you’ve said.”
Lena gave Julian a warning look. It was not the time for satisfaction, even the restrained kind.
He lowered his eyes. She was right.
Claire had always thought of Julian Harrow as a man incapable of embarrassment. As a child, she had watched him carve roast beef at her father’s table while politicians, attorneys, donors, and professors argued around him. He never raised his voice. He waited until everyone else had spent theirs.
Now a flush climbed above his collar.
He returned to the sofa and crouched in front of Claire, no longer touching her.
“An ambulance is coming,” he said. “You can decide what you tell them. You can decide what you tell the police. No one in this room is entitled to an answer before you’re ready.”
Nathaniel stared at him.
Claire swallowed. Her throat hurt, though Nathaniel had never touched it. She had spent years discovering how many places fear could live without leaving marks.
“Can I go upstairs first?” she asked.
Lena shook her head gently. “I’d prefer you stay where we can see you until the paramedics arrive. We can bring you anything you need.”
“My bag.”
“I’ll get it,” Mara said.
Nathaniel turned toward the door. “No one is going through our bedroom.”
Mara froze.
Claire heard herself say, “It’s my bedroom too.”
The words sounded embarrassingly small. They also changed something.
Mara left the library.
Nathaniel did not stop her.
The first local officer arrived eight minutes later, a broad-shouldered woman named Officer Keene who wiped her shoes carefully on the entry mat before Mara guided her down the hall. A younger officer followed. The paramedics came behind them with folding equipment and a wheeled stretcher that looked too bright and mechanical for the dark wood of Alder House.
Claire refused the stretcher.
“I can walk.”
The paramedic, a woman with silver hoops in her ears, did not argue. “You may be able to. I’d still like you to let us check your blood pressure before you prove it.”
Claire almost smiled. The expression pulled at the bruise beneath her eye.
Nathaniel watched from beside the desk while a cuff was wrapped around Claire’s arm. He looked inconvenienced now. That frightened her more than when he looked angry.
The paramedic asked if Claire had abdominal pain, bleeding, fluid loss, contractions, dizziness, or reduced fetal movement. Claire answered each question. Her voice steadied because the questions were specific and did not require her to explain her marriage.
When the paramedic asked whether she had been struck, Claire looked at Nathaniel.
Officer Keene followed her gaze. “Mr. Vale, step into the hall with my partner.”
“I’m not leaving my wife.”
Claire’s blood pressure machine beeped.
The younger officer moved closer. “Sir.”
Nathaniel looked to Julian again, perhaps expecting him to intervene on behalf of civility, family history, or wealthy men being asked to obey young police officers in their own homes.
Julian turned his back on him.
Nathaniel left the room.
The library doors closed.
Claire released a breath that seemed to come from somewhere below her lungs.
The paramedic waited.
“Yes,” Claire said. “He hit me.”
Mara made a small, wounded sound.
Claire continued before courage could turn into thought. “Not today. Today he grabbed me. I pulled away, and he pushed my shoulder. I hit the side table. The cup broke.”
Officer Keene’s pen moved across her notebook.
“The bruise?”
“Last night.”
“With what?”
“His hand.”
“Open or closed?”
“Open.”
“Did you lose consciousness?”
“No.”
“Did he strike your abdomen?”
“No.”
“Did you fall onto your abdomen?”
“No. My hip hit the sofa arm.”
“Has he hurt you before?”
Claire’s mouth opened.
No answer came.
The paramedic removed the blood pressure cuff. “We need to take you in for monitoring. Your pressure is elevated, and given how far along you are, your obstetric team will want to evaluate you.”
“I have an appointment tomorrow.”
“This shouldn’t wait until tomorrow.”
Claire looked at the doors. “Will he come?”
“He won’t ride with us,” Officer Keene said. “You can tell the hospital who is allowed in.”
“I need my phone.”
Mara returned carrying Claire’s leather bag, a cardigan, and a pair of flat shoes. She had also brought a small wooden box.
Nathaniel entered behind her despite the officer’s attempt to keep him out.
“What is that?” he demanded.
Mara held the box against her chest.
Claire recognized it. It belonged in the locked drawer beneath the household account books.
Mara looked at Officer Keene. “The recording system stores a local copy in the security cabinet for twenty-four hours. That is the backup drive.”
Nathaniel’s face changed.
He had forgotten about the cabinet.
Or he had assumed Mara did not know what it contained.
“You had no right to remove that,” he said.
“I have the key,” Mara replied.
Her voice shook. The box did not.
Nathaniel moved one step toward her.
Malcolm Reed placed himself in the space between them.
“That’s enough,” he said.
Nathaniel stopped.
Claire watched Mara carry the box to Officer Keene. For years, Mara had apologized when she entered a room too loudly. She apologized to chairs when she bumped them. She apologized to delivery drivers for rain.
Now she said, “He cannot be allowed to erase it.”
Officer Keene accepted the box but did not open it. She asked Mara where it had been stored, who had access, when she had removed it, and whether anyone else had handled it. Lena Ortiz recorded the answers.
The questions seemed almost insulting to Claire. Mara was trying to help. Why make her defend the help?
Julian caught Claire’s expression.
“They need to know where it has been,” he said quietly. “That is how they protect it from being dismissed later.”
May you like
Later.
The word opened a corridor in Claire’s mind that she did not want to enter. Later meant statements, photographs, lawyers, Nathaniel’s family, the foundation board, the baby’s birth, newspaper articles with carefully chosen photographs. Later meant people deciding whether fear had made her reliable or unstable.
