Chương 2
“Books and bad decisions.”
The driver gave him a quick look, decided not to ask, and loaded both cases into the trunk.
Robert sat in the back seat. Through the window, he saw Vanessa and Ethan standing several feet apart on the stone path. The mansion rose behind them in pale limestone and dark timber, with open doors framing the curved staircase and chandelier.
Robert had paid for nearly all of it.
That fact had once comforted him.
Now it embarrassed him.
As the car pulled away, Ethan raised one hand. He might have been signaling the driver. He might have been asking his father to stop. Robert watched until the hedge blocked the house from view, then looked down at his own empty hands.
The driver adjusted the air-conditioning vent.
“Airport?”
“Hotel.”
“Visiting?”
“I live here.”
The driver nodded as though that explained something. “Harbor House is decent. Breakfast is overpriced.”
Robert turned toward the window.
His phone buzzed. Ethan’s name appeared, vanished, and appeared again.
Robert declined both calls.
On the third, he switched the phone to silent and set it facedown on the seat.
Philadelphia traffic moved slowly under a washed blue sky. A landscaping crew loaded trimmers into a truck. Two teenage boys walked bicycles across an intersection, arguing about whose chain had come off. At a red light, a woman in scrubs ate crackers from a vending-machine packet and stared straight ahead.
Robert pressed his thumb against the faint indentation his wedding ring had left on his finger. He had taken the ring off eleven months after Helen died, not because he felt ready, but because a swollen knuckle had made it painful.
He kept it in the watch box inside the silver suitcase.
The Harbor House occupied a converted warehouse near the river, all exposed brick and brass fixtures pretending not to be expensive. The young man at the front desk asked Robert whether his stay was business or leisure.
“Neither.”
The man hesitated over the keyboard.
“Personal,” Robert said.
“That works.”
The room on the sixth floor had one narrow window, a gray chair, a desk too shallow for writing, and a framed print of a rowboat tied to a dock. Robert stood in the doorway while the bellman placed the suitcases on a folding rack.
“Anything else, sir?”
“No.”
The bellman waited.
Robert realized he was expected to tip him. He took out his wallet, found only a hundred-dollar bill and three singles, and gave him the singles.
“Thank you, sir.”
The door closed.
Robert sat on the edge of the bed.
For several minutes, he listened to the air conditioner cycle on and off. He could hear plumbing in the wall, a vacuum cleaner somewhere down the hall, and a couple arguing softly in the next room about where they had parked.
His right hand had started trembling.
He closed it into a fist until the shaking passed.
Then he opened the brown suitcase.
The photograph lay facedown beneath the silver house key. A crack ran from the upper-left corner of the glass toward Ethan’s shoulder.
Robert lifted it carefully.
The picture had been taken twenty-six years earlier at a minor-league baseball game. Ethan was fourteen, all knees and elbows, wearing a cap too large for him. Robert stood behind him with one hand on his shoulder. Both of them were squinting into the sun. Helen had taken the photograph after telling them three times to stop complaining and smile like they were related.
Robert had kept it on the dresser in the guest suite.
Vanessa had disliked it because the frame did not match the room.
He set the photograph against the lamp.
The silver key remained in the suitcase.
Robert picked it up and held it on his palm. It was a duplicate Ethan had made for him the week Robert moved into the mansion after Helen’s death.
Stay as long as you need, Ethan had said.
Robert had believed he meant it.
What Ethan had probably meant was three months.
Robert had stayed for twenty-one.
His phone vibrated across the desk.
This time the caller was Lydia Grant, the relationship manager at Crossway Private Bank.
Robert answered.
“Mr. Hale, I wanted to confirm that your cancellation instruction was processed,” she said. “The funds remain in the trust account. No distribution was completed.”
“Good.”
“There have been several calls from Hale Urban Development. Mrs. Hale is listed as an authorized financial contact for the receiving account, but she does not have authority over the trust. We have explained that.”
“Thank you.”
Lydia paused. “Your attorney also left a message for you.”
“I’ll call her.”
“Mr. Hale, I need to ask one procedural question. Are you canceling because of suspected fraud, or because the distribution conditions were not met?”
“The conditions weren’t met.”
“Do you believe any documents provided to you were intentionally falsified?”
Robert looked at the cracked photograph.
“I don’t know yet.”
“All right. We’ll preserve the records associated with the authorization request. If you decide to dispute any specific document, we’ll need that in writing.”
“I understand.”
“Would you like us to restrict all communication to you and Ms. Ruiz?”
“Yes.”
After the call, Robert opened his email.
There were nineteen new messages. Twelve came from Ethan, Vanessa, or members of Hale Urban Development’s board. One came from a guest who had attended brunch and apparently believed the right response to family humiliation was a paragraph about keeping perspective. Two came from vendors asking about invoices. One was an advertisement for orthopedic shoes.
Robert deleted the advertisement.
He did not open the others.
Instead, he called Dana Ruiz.
She answered on the second ring. “Where are you?”
“Harbor House.”
“You left the mansion?”
May you like
“They removed the uncertainty.”
Dana sighed. Robert could picture her at home in reading glasses, one hand around the mug she used during weekend calls. She had represented him since the sale of Hale Precision and had developed the annoying habit of asking questions he did not want to answer.
