Chương 4
Adrian said no.
Margaret opened the door anyway. A security officer stood behind her, visibly uncomfortable.
“I am leaving,” she announced. “But I won’t be treated like a criminal because of one sentence taken out of context.”
Claire opened her eyes.
“What was the context?”
Margaret looked at the police officer, then at Maribel.
“This is not the setting.”
“It was your setting when I was on the floor.”
Margaret’s lips pressed together.
The officer stood. “Mrs. Vale, detectives may contact you. Do not delete messages or recordings connected to Thursday night.”
Margaret gave a tiny, humorless smile. “I don’t delete anything.”
Adrian looked at Claire.
There it was—the first useful lie.
Claire had seen Margaret delete messages during board meetings while criticizing younger employees for using disappearing chat applications. Margaret believed records were valuable only when she controlled them.
The officer escorted Margaret out.
Adrian waited until the door latched. “We need a preservation notice sent to every device and account she uses.”
“I’ll call our forensic firm,” Claire said.
“You’re not calling anyone. You’re going to sleep.”
“She’ll destroy evidence.”
“We anticipated that.”
“You anticipated Derek attacking you?”
“No. That part of the plan lacked polish.”
Maribel checked Claire’s blood pressure. “He’s right about sleeping.”
Claire looked at the two of them. “I dislike this alliance.”
“You can complain tomorrow,” Adrian said.
“Put it on the schedule.”
She drifted off before he left.
When she woke, the room was dark except for the monitor display and the amber light beneath the bathroom door. A woman sat in the visitor chair wearing a green wool coat and muddy sneakers.
Naomi Chen had been Claire’s roommate during their first year after college, before either of them could afford furniture that did not arrive in a box. She now ran Bellwether’s product division and possessed the emotional subtlety of a fire alarm.
“You look terrible,” Naomi said.
Claire blinked. “Thank you.”
“I brought soup.”
“There’s soup here.”
“Hospital soup is punishment.”
Naomi lifted a paper bag from the floor. “This is punishment with ginger.”
Claire looked toward the door.
“He’s gone,” Naomi said. “Adrian told me.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You looked.”
Claire pressed the control that raised the bed. The movement sent a bolt through her cast, and she stopped halfway.
Naomi stood but did not touch her. “What do you need?”
“For everyone to stop asking that.”
“All right.”
Naomi sat again.
For several minutes they listened to the soft mechanical sounds of the room. A plow scraped slush from the street below. Someone laughed at the nurses’ station. Naomi took a folded receipt from her pocket and began flattening it against her knee.
Claire had always envied her ability to remain silent without making silence feel like punishment.
“What’s happening at work?” Claire asked.
“Chaos.”
“Specific chaos.”
“Derek sent an email before he came here saying you suffered a severe accident caused by stress and exhaustion. He said the board had encouraged you to take an indefinite medical leave.”
Claire stared at her.
“He sent that after he knew about the suspension?”
“Five minutes before. He copied the senior leadership team and the bank.”
“Did anyone respond?”
“Martin from sales replied to everyone with a praying-hands emoji.”
Despite herself, Claire laughed.
The laugh hurt her ribs and turned into a gasp.
Naomi waited until it passed. “There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“Someone forwarded the email to a business reporter.”
“Which reporter?”
“Dylan Sloane.”
Claire knew the name. Sloane covered distressed private companies and enjoyed describing family businesses as dynasties, even when the dynasty involved warehouse leases and seasonal throw pillows.
“Did he call you?”
“Twice.”
“What did you say?”
“That I don’t discuss employee medical information.”
“Good.”
“I also told him Derek has been suspended.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“You said good first,” Naomi reminded her.
“You weren’t authorized.”
“He asked whether Derek was still running the company. I said no. It was true.”
“Truth is not the same as authorization.”
Naomi folded the receipt into a narrow strip. “You’re welcome.”
Claire looked at her friend’s face and saw anger there, held so tightly it had become composure.
“You knew,” Claire said.
“Not this.”
“You knew enough.”
Naomi looked down.
Six months earlier, she had asked Claire whether Derek’s habit of gripping her elbow in public was as unpleasant as it looked. Claire had called it a marriage quirk. Naomi had not laughed.
Two years earlier, after a Bellwether holiday party, Derek had driven home too fast because Claire spoke longer than he expected during her presentation. Naomi had found Claire crying in the restroom the next morning. Claire blamed champagne.
There had been other moments. Small, deniable, embarrassing.
Naomi had witnessed them and then allowed Claire to deny them.
“I knew he made you smaller,” she said. “I didn’t know he’d put you on the floor.”
Claire turned toward the window.
The glass reflected her pale face, the bandage, the bruises. Her honey-blonde hair had been brushed but not washed, spreading over the pillow in uneven waves. The woman in the reflection looked both older and strangely unfinished.
“I hit him,” she said.
Naomi waited.
“I slapped him before he pushed me.”
“Do you think that makes it even?”
“No.”
“Do you think it makes what he did legal?”
“No.”
“Then why are you telling me like you’re confessing?”
Claire adjusted the hospital wristband. It had begun to itch beneath the plastic.
“Because everyone is looking for a clean victim.”
Naomi put the receipt on the bedside table. “I’m not.”
The soup went cold before Claire tasted it.
By morning, Derek had been released from custody with an order to stay away from Claire and the hospital. The prosecutor had not yet decided which charges to pursue. Adrian explained this while standing at the foot of her bed with coffee in one hand and three phones in his coat pockets.
“How can he be released?” Claire asked.
May you like
“Because release isn’t acquittal.”
“He could go to the apartment.”
