Part 17
“It shouldn’t.”
Claire watched him put on his jacket. “Where is Adrian?”
“Still at the museum. His attorney has arrived.”
“Of course he has.”
“Claire.”
“What?”
“I need to ask something you may not like.”
She waited.
“Has he ever frightened you before tonight?”
The truthful answer felt disloyal, which angered her.
“He has never hit me.”
“That was not my question.”
She looked down at the tape around the intravenous port in her hand. The nurse had inserted it in case medication became necessary, though none had been.
“He has stood in doorways,” she said. “He takes my phone when he thinks I’m being irrational. He once canceled a trip without telling me because he said I was too tired to travel. He reads messages over my shoulder.”
Malcolm’s expression did not change. That restraint made it possible to continue.
“He apologizes,” she said. “Afterward.”
“How often?”
“I don’t keep a ledger.”
“I am not judging you.”
“You are judging him.”
“Yes.”
“At least you’re honest.”
Malcolm sat again.
Claire had expected rage from him, not patience. Rage would have let her comfort him. Patience required her to hear herself.
“He says I disappear when work gets difficult,” she said. “That I become obsessive. Sometimes that’s true. When Dad was sick, I kept making lists. Medication times. Visitors. Things he ate. I thought if I wrote everything down, nothing worse could happen.”
Malcolm nodded once. “You were seventeen.”
“Adrian says I still do it.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“That does not give him ownership of your decisions.”
“He doesn’t call it ownership.”
“People rarely do.”
Claire leaned back against the pillow. “You are very certain tonight.”
“I have the luxury of being certain about someone else’s life.”
The admission was quiet enough to be real.
A police detective arrived shortly after midnight. Her name was Elena Ruiz, and she wore a rain-darkened coat over plain clothes. She interviewed Claire alone after asking Malcolm to leave.
Detective Ruiz did not force words onto the incident. She asked where Claire had been standing, where Adrian had been, what she remembered touching, whether she had felt pain before reaching the floor, whether anyone had threatened her, and what had happened to the card.
Claire described the confrontation in pieces.
She had returned to her office after receiving a message from Miriam that the archive door had been found unsecured. The Marlowe file was open on her desk. Adrian stood near the shelves. He said he had come looking for her. When she noticed pages missing, she reached for the gold card attached to her evening clutch. Adrian took it.
“Did he strike you?” Ruiz asked.
“No.”
“Did he push you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he touch you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He grabbed my wrist. Then my upper arm.”
“What happened next?”
“I stepped backward.”
“Did he release you?”
“I remember pulling away.”
“Then?”
“My shoulder hit the bench.”
“Your face?”
“I may have caught it on the edge.”
Ruiz made a note. “May have?”
“I don’t remember the exact order.”
“That’s common after a sudden event.”
Claire disliked the relief those words gave her.
“Did he prevent you from leaving?”
“He stood between me and the rotunda.”
“For how long?”
“Maybe ten seconds.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I was going to destroy my family over paperwork.”
“Anything else?”
Claire paused.
“He said, ‘Your uncle already knows what these people are.’”
Ruiz’s pen stopped. “Which people?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Why not?”
“Because he had the card, and I was trying to get it back.”
When the interview ended, Ruiz told Claire that the decision to pursue charges did not need to be made that night. The museum’s security footage would be reviewed. Witnesses would be interviewed separately. The office and archive logs would be preserved.
“Do not ask anyone to coordinate accounts,” Ruiz said. “Including your uncle.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Ruiz gave her a look that suggested wealthy families said that often.
Claire almost smiled. “You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you intend not to. Intentions get crowded when lawyers arrive.”
By one thirty, Claire had been discharged.
Malcolm wanted her to stay at his Beacon Hill house. Claire refused. She did not want his staff whispering in hallways or his driver pretending not to notice her hospital bracelet.
Her own apartment felt worse.
Adrian had moved into the Commonwealth Avenue townhouse six months earlier, though both of them still called it hers when they argued. His shoes stood beneath the entry bench. His coat hung beside hers. A bottle of the mineral water he preferred sat open on the kitchen counter.
Miriam had arrived before them with two museum security officers. She had packed Adrian’s essential belongings into three garment bags and a suitcase after receiving written permission from Claire. The rest remained untouched.
“He texted you,” Miriam said.
Claire stared at her phone.
Twenty-seven messages waited.
Most were brief.
Please call me.
You are letting Malcolm turn this into a war.
I was protecting you.
You know what happens if those records become public.
The final message had arrived nine minutes earlier.
Ask your uncle what Daniel did in 1998.
Claire locked the screen.
Miriam stood near the kitchen island, still in her dark formal suit. Her hair, which had been arranged neatly at the gala, had loosened above one ear. She looked exhausted but not uncertain.
“Did you know my father was involved?” Claire asked.
“I knew he handled acquisitions.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No. I did not know.”
“Did Uncle Malcolm?”
“You should ask him.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“He chose to believe my father.”
Miriam removed her glasses and cleaned them with the edge of a folded tissue. “That sounds like Malcolm.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
May you like
“I have worked with him for nineteen years. His loyalty is genuine. So is his ability to place loyalty where judgment ought to be.”
Claire walked into the living room. Two champagne coupes from the previous evening remained on the coffee table. Adrian had left a magazine facedown on the sofa. There was nothing sinister in the room. That offended her too.
