Chương 5
“Preserve every email, phone log, access record, visitor log, and foundation referral associated with Clara’s name. Preserve Vale’s invoices. Preserve my mother’s communications with Voss.”
“I can preserve company records. I cannot seize your mother’s private files.”
“Do what you can legally do.”
“I intended to.”
Naomi’s voice softened slightly. “How sick is the child?”
“Pneumonia. They’re keeping him overnight.”
“And the others?”
“Six years old.”
“That was not my question.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
Naomi exhaled. “The board will demand you appear remotely at seven.”
“No.”
“Then they may postpone the vote or remove you from negotiations.”
“Let them.”
“Ethan.”
He ended the call.
Marcus stood by the window with his hands in his coat pockets.
“What?” Ethan asked.
“Nothing.”
“You have a face.”
“I’ve always had one.”
“You know what I mean.”
Marcus looked toward Noah’s room. “For nine years, I’ve watched people tell you that no cost was too high as long as you chose it first. You might want to be careful tonight.”
“About what?”
“Choosing costs for other people.”
Ethan looked at him.
Marcus did not look away.
Shortly after midnight, Noah’s fever rose.
The nurse asked everyone except Clara to leave the room while the medical team worked. Caleb stood outside the door with both fists pressed beneath his chin. Lily sat on the floor because she had refused a chair, the old photograph clutched against her knees.
Ethan crouched several feet from them.
“Is he dying?” Caleb asked.
“No.”
“You don’t know.”
“No,” Ethan admitted. “I don’t.”
Caleb’s lower lip trembled. He bit it until the tremor stopped.
Lily held out the photograph.
“You bent it more.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Mom says sorry doesn’t unbend things.”
“She’s right.”
“You can put it under heavy books.”
“I have heavy books.”
She considered this. “Do billionaires read?”
“Some of them pretend.”
Caleb gave him a suspicious look, as though humor at that hour constituted evidence of bad character.
The door opened. Dr. Shah stepped into the corridor. Noah’s oxygen level had stabilized, she said. They were changing his treatment and moving him to a pediatric unit where he could be watched more closely. Clara could ride in the elevator with him.
Caleb’s shoulders dropped.
Ethan remained crouched after the children stood. The relief made his knees feel unreliable.
Lily touched the sleeve of his suit.
“Your coat is with Noah.”
“I know.”
“Are you cold?”
“A little.”
She nodded with grave satisfaction, as though this were fair.
At one fifteen in the morning, a private laboratory technician arrived to collect samples for a paternity test. Naomi had located a service able to perform a legally witnessed test with Clara’s written consent. Results would not be immediate.
Clara read every page twice.
“You can have your own lawyer review it,” Ethan said.
“I don’t have a lawyer.”
“I can pay for one who doesn’t represent me.”
“That sentence doesn’t make sense.”
“It can. You choose the attorney. I pay the invoice without receiving privileged information.”
“And if I choose someone who tells me to sue you?”
“Then I pay an attorney to tell you how.”
Clara looked for mockery and found none.
“You really think money can solve everything.”
“No.” Ethan glanced through the glass at Noah. “I think not having money makes everything harder.”
That answer seemed to reach her despite herself.
She signed.
The technician swabbed Ethan’s cheek first. Caleb watched closely.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“People say that before things hurt.”
The technician smiled. “It feels like brushing the inside of your mouth.”
Caleb went next, then Lily. Noah’s sample was collected last with the nurse’s approval. He barely woke.
When it was finished, Clara folded her copy of the paperwork and placed it inside Lily’s coat pocket beside the photograph.
“Why does she keep everything?” Ethan asked.
“Because people don’t search children first,” Clara said.
He did not ask what had taught her that.
The social worker found two reclining chairs for Caleb and Lily in a family lounge. Clara remained at Noah’s bedside. Ethan took a chair in the corridor, where the lights stayed bright and every passing cart woke him.
At three in the morning, Marcus draped his own overcoat across Ethan’s shoulders.
“You’ll need it.”
“So will you.”
“I’m wearing a suit.”
“So am I.”
“Mine has room in it.”
Ethan was too tired to argue.
He slept for twenty-three minutes and woke to his mother standing at the end of the corridor.
Eleanor Cole was sixty-three and carried herself with the contained force of someone who had spent decades entering rooms she believed should have been prepared for her. Her silver-blond hair was pinned neatly beneath a dark cashmere scarf. Snow had not touched her camel coat. A young attorney stood behind her with a leather portfolio.
Marcus rose before Ethan did.
“You can’t be here,” Ethan said.
Eleanor’s gaze moved past him to the window of Noah’s room.
“Which one is sick?”
The question answered too much.
Ethan stood slowly. “You know their names?”
She looked at him. “Lower your voice.”
“Do you know their names?”
The attorney stepped forward. Marcus moved between them without appearing to.
Eleanor’s mouth tightened. “This is not the place.”
“It’s the only place we’re having this conversation tonight.”
Clara appeared inside Noah’s room. The blood drained from her face when she saw Eleanor.
Ethan noticed and stepped directly into his mother’s line of sight.
“You need to leave.”
“I came because you are making decisions in shock.”
“I asked whether you knew their names.”
Eleanor removed one glove finger by finger. “Caleb, Lily, and Noah.”
From behind Ethan, Clara whispered, “No.”
Caleb and Lily had emerged from the family lounge with a nurse. Lily immediately backed into the wall. Caleb moved in front of her.
Eleanor’s composure faltered for the first time.
“Children,” she said.
“Don’t speak to them,” Clara replied.
The nurse looked at Ethan. “Do we need security?”
“Yes,” Clara said.
May you like
“No,” Eleanor said at the same time.
Ethan faced the nurse. “Yes.”
