Chương 6
“My wrist.”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“I saw your grandmother come in.”
Sophie stopped.
“She came in after?”
“Yes.”
That did not match Sophie’s memory.
Margaret had always seemed to be there from the beginning.
Sophie pressed her fingertips to her forehead.
Daniel said, “She came in at nine thirty-four.”
“You know the time?”
“The camera timestamp.”
Sophie tried to reconstruct it.
Richard asking her to sign.
Her refusing.
The office door closing.
Her father taking her phone after she tried to call an Uber.
His hand around her wrist.
Margaret’s voice.
Stop making this uglier than it needs to be.
Maybe Margaret had entered later.
Fear had compressed the whole night into one room.
“What did she do?” Sophie asked.
Daniel did not answer immediately.
“She didn’t touch you.”
“I know.”
“She told him to let go.”
Sophie looked at Evelyn.
That was new.
“Then why did she pay you?”
Daniel’s voice dropped.
“Because after you left, she watched the footage with me and Richard.”
Sophie felt something open inside her, a small cold space.
“He wanted it deleted,” Daniel said. “Your grandmother said no at first.”
Evelyn leaned closer to the phone.
“What changed?”
“Richard told her what would happen if Sophie contested the proxy.”
“What did he say?”
“He said the board would fracture. Lenders would panic. The Morrow deal would collapse. He said reporters would turn it into a domestic abuse story and Hale Meridian would lose hundreds of millions.”
Sophie looked down.
The Morrow acquisition.
Her father had mentioned it for months as if it were a family member requiring special care.
Daniel said, “Your grandmother kept asking whether there was any way to preserve the footage privately. Richard said the existence of the footage was the problem.”
“And she agreed?” Sophie asked.
“No.”
A car passed close to Daniel. The sound filled the line.
“She told him he was an idiot. She told him he had done something unforgivable.”
Sophie almost laughed.
The word sounded ridiculous in Margaret’s mouth.
“Then she paid me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Daniel was silent.
“Why?”
“Because Richard said if the proxy failed, he would be removed as CEO.”
Sophie waited.
“That was enough?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Daniel breathed in.
“He told her your mother had already tried to remove him before she died.”
The kitchen disappeared for Sophie.
Not literally.
The table stayed beneath her palms. Evelyn stayed beside her. Traffic continued somewhere outside.
But Claire entered the room.
Claire with her reading glasses pushed into her hair.
Claire writing notes on the backs of envelopes.
Claire saying Richard never thinks consequences apply to him.
Claire dying on a wet highway in Vermont when Sophie was sixteen.
Sophie heard herself say, “My mother?”
Daniel spoke carefully.
“There were documents. Richard showed Margaret something. I couldn’t see all of it.”
“What documents?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did my grandmother know?”
“About your mother trying to remove him? I don’t think so.”
“And then she gave you money.”
“Yes.”
Sophie pushed back from the table.
Evelyn said, “Daniel, where is the copy?”
“I need protection for my son.”
“We can work on that.”
“I need more than work on it.”
“We need the file to do anything meaningful.”
“You lawyers always want the thing first.”
“Because the thing determines what protection is justified.”
Daniel laughed without humor.
“Yeah. That’s exactly the kind of sentence that got me here.”
Evelyn’s face tightened.
Sophie said, “What do you want from me?”
Daniel went quiet.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why did you call me?”
“Because I owed you the truth.”
“No. You owe me the video.”
Evelyn looked at her.
Sophie kept going.
“You took money to erase it. Then you kept a copy. Then you disappeared. You don’t get to call and feel better because you apologized.”
Daniel said nothing.
Sophie’s hands were shaking again.
She let them.
“If you’re scared, say you’re scared. If you want immunity, say you want immunity. If you want money, say that too. But stop making me carry whatever kind of person you think you are.”
A long silence followed.
Then Daniel said, “Your mother gave me a key.”
Sophie stopped breathing.
“When?”
“About six months before she died.”
“What key?”
“A safe-deposit key.”
Evelyn reached for the legal pad again.
“Daniel, which bank?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have the key?”
“Yes.”
“Why did Claire give it to you?”
“She said if anything happened to her, I should give it to Sophie when she was old enough to understand what it meant.”
Sophie felt anger rise so quickly it almost steadied her.
“My mother died five years ago.”
“I know.”
“I turned eighteen three years ago.”
“I know.”
“I turned twenty-one in March.”
“I know.”
“And you kept it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Daniel’s answer came quietly.
“Because I was afraid of your father long before you were.”
The call ended six minutes later after Daniel agreed to meet his lawyer at a federal courthouse the next morning. Evelyn refused to promise immunity she could not control. Daniel refused to disclose where he was sleeping.
They compromised on one thing.
He would not contact Sophie directly again.
Afterward, Sophie stood at the sink.
Evelyn closed her laptop.
“Say it.”
Sophie did not turn.
“Say what?”
“That this changes everything.”
“It changes some things.”
Sophie laughed bitterly.
“You are impossible.”
“I work hard at it.”
“My mother gave him a key.”
“Allegedly.”
“Please don’t.”
Evelyn stopped.
Sophie turned.
“Just once, can you not put allegedly around my life?”
Evelyn’s expression softened.
“Yes.”
The answer took some of the fight out of Sophie.
She sat again.
“My mother gave him a key.”
“Yes.”
“And he kept it.”
“Yes.”
“Why would she trust him?”
“Maybe she didn’t trust him very much.”
Sophie frowned.
Evelyn shrugged.
“Sometimes you give something to the person nobody is watching.”
Daniel appeared the next morning with the key, the security video, and a bruise beneath his left eye.
May you like
He would not say who hit him.
His lawyer did most of the talking.
