Chương 5
“That is not the same.”
“It feels the same when a man is explaining what I must do because he knows better.”
Julian stood very still beside the private hospital exit.
The driver waiting for them was an off-duty hospital security employee. Mara had changed out of her black dress into a brown cardigan and gray slacks borrowed from the nursing supervisor, who kept spare clothes for patients and families. The white collar of her uniform showed above the folded garments in a shopping bag.
Julian put both hands into the pockets of his overcoat.
“You’re right,” he said.
Claire had prepared herself to fight.
His agreement left her nowhere to put the anger.
“I’ll stay at the hotel,” Mara said. “In the room next door, if they have one. Or down the hall. I snore, but not through walls.”
Claire looked at her.
Mara gave a nervous shrug. “Mr. Bell claimed otherwise, but he was a dramatic man.”
Mr. Bell had been dead twelve years. Claire had never heard Mara make a joke about him.
The laugh that escaped Claire was brief and ugly and nearly became a sob.
Mara stepped forward but did not embrace her.
“May I?”
Claire nodded.
Mara held her carefully, leaving space for the baby between them.
Julian drove home alone.
The hotel room had beige walls, a patterned carpet, and a framed photograph of a sailboat that had probably never been near the town. Claire sat on the edge of the bed while Mara inspected the locks, the connecting door, the bathroom window, and the thermostat.
“The vent rattles,” Mara said. “I can call downstairs.”
“Leave it.”
Mara placed Claire’s bag on the dresser.
They had purchased a prepaid phone at a pharmacy. Claire’s personal phone was powered off inside a foil-lined evidence pouch Lena had given her. The arrangement felt ridiculous, the kind of thing people did in television thrillers, except her ankles were swollen and Mara had bought the wrong toothpaste.
Claire brushed her teeth with peppermint gel intended for children.
When she emerged from the bathroom, Mara was standing by the curtains.
“Do you need anything else?”
“Sleep.”
“Yes.”
Mara did not leave.
Claire sat down again. “What?”
The older woman’s face folded inward. “I heard things.”
Claire waited.
“Before today. Doors. Arguments. Once, something broke in the dressing room. I asked if you needed help. You said a lamp had fallen.”
“It did fall.”
“Did he knock it over?”
Claire looked toward the sailboat photograph.
Mara’s voice dropped. “I should have done more.”
“What would you have done?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then don’t make me comfort you.”
Mara flinched.
Shame came immediately, mixed with resentment that shame had arrived when Claire was too tired to host it.
“I’m sorry,” Claire said.
“No. You’re right.”
“I’m still sorry.”
Mara sat in the desk chair. “He dismissed two maids in the past year. Both after they heard arguments. One had taken a photograph of your wrist.”
Claire turned toward her.
“When?”
“January. You wore long gloves to the winter foundation dinner.”
Claire remembered the gloves. Green suede, a gift from Nathaniel.
“Who took the picture?”
“Becca Lowe. She deleted it after Mr. Vale threatened to report her for stealing jewelry.”
“Did she steal anything?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I found the bracelet later behind the radiator in your dressing room.”
Claire felt the room tilt though she was sitting.
“Did Nathaniel know?”
“I told him.”
“What did he say?”
“That the girl had other problems and it was better she left.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Mara stared at her hands. “You were pregnant. He said stress could hurt the baby.”
Nathaniel’s language had moved through the house without anyone noticing it belonged to him.
Claire stood too quickly. Pain pulled along her hip where she had struck the sofa arm. She gripped the dresser.
Mara rose.
“Don’t.”
Mara stopped.
Claire paced the short distance between the bed and the window. “Call Julian.”
“It’s after eleven.”
“He’ll be awake.”
Julian answered on the first ring.
Claire told him about Becca and the photograph. He did not interrupt. When she finished, he asked for Becca’s full name and last known address.
“You’re doing it again,” Claire said.
“Doing what?”
“Turning a person into evidence before you ask what happened to her.”
Silence.
Then Julian said, “You’re right. Do you want to contact her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you like Lena to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then nothing happens tonight.”
Claire sat on the edge of the bed.
“What happened with the foundation records?” he asked.
She looked at Mara. “How much do you know?”
“Enough to know two million dollars did not go where the board was told it went.”
“It’s closer to eight.”
Julian exhaled.
Claire told him what she had found.
The Vale Heritage Foundation funded preservation projects, local museums, agricultural easements, and scholarships. Nathaniel’s grandfather had designed its governing trust to require two family trustees and three independent trustees for major transfers. Claire had become a family trustee after marrying Nathaniel, largely because his younger brother wanted nothing to do with the estate.
For years, Claire treated the role seriously and the others treated that seriousness as charming.
Six months earlier, during a routine review of restoration grants, she found duplicate invoices from a consulting company called North Reach Advisory. The payments had been approved under three different project names. Nathaniel explained that the foundation had consolidated vendors during an accounting transition.
Claire asked for the underlying contracts.
They arrived incomplete.
She requested bank documentation through the foundation’s outside accountant. Nathaniel learned of the request and accused her of undermining staff. A week later, her access to the accounting portal stopped working.
May you like
She began taking photographs of paper records.
North Reach had received nearly eight million dollars over eighteen months. Its listed manager was an attorney who had represented a Vale family holding company. Some of the money had moved again into an entity that owned a portion of Alder House’s debt.
