Chương 3
Owen sitting on Daniel’s back porch two weeks before his death, balancing a beer on one knee and complaining that rich people treated rules like parking tickets.
Daniel had been replacing a cracked board.
Owen kept asking whether Daniel had a spare room.
Daniel had thought he was joking.
He always joked around serious things.
“You’re getting fired?” Daniel had asked.
“Maybe promoted.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Exactly.”
Daniel had thrown a wood screw at him.
Owen had caught it and put it in his pocket.
Daniel wondered now whether that screw had been in his pocket when they found his body.
“What had he screwed up?” Daniel asked.
Emily’s voice became thinner.
“He’d taken something.”
“Money?”
“No.”
“What?”
Richard said, “Enough.”
Daniel turned on him.
Richard did not raise his voice.
“My daughter requires a hospital, not an interrogation.”
“Then open the doors.”
Richard glanced toward the storm.
“The runway road is partially flooded.”
“There are two SUVs outside.”
“One is equipped to transport her back to the clinic.”
“Then transport her.”
Richard hesitated.
Daniel saw it.
The older security man saw it too.
He cleared his throat.
Richard looked at him.
The man said, “Sir, we can take Mrs. Mercer to North Valley.”
Richard’s face remained still.
Daniel remembered the guard’s name suddenly. Cole. He had been at a Christmas dinner once, standing near the Whitmore house library while guests pretended not to notice armed security.
“North Valley Regional?” Daniel asked.
Cole nodded.
“Thirty-five minutes in this weather.”
“Then we go.”
Richard said, “Not yet.”
That was the moment Daniel stopped wondering whether Richard was merely overbearing.
Not yet.
Not because the road was unsafe. Not because the doctors had advised against transport. Not because the jet was more appropriate.
Not yet.
Because of the case.
Daniel shut it and pulled out the key.
He slipped the chain over his head again.
Richard watched every movement.
“You get the key,” Daniel said, “after Emily is admitted to a hospital she chooses and after I make copies of whatever’s inside.”
Richard’s gaze hardened.
“That material was stolen.”
“Call the police.”
Emily made another small, almost amused sound.
Daniel looked at her.
Her eyes were half closed.
“What?”
“He can’t.”
Richard turned toward his daughter.
Emily’s breathing had become uneven.
Daniel knelt beside the stretcher.
“Em.”
She looked at him.
“Stay with me.”
“I’m here.”
“What can’t he call the police about?”
Her eyes drifted toward the silver case.
“That.”
Then the monitor alarm changed.
Cole moved first.
He was at Emily’s side immediately, checking the display.
“What’s happening?” Daniel asked.
Cole ignored him and called toward the second guard. “Get Keller.”
The younger man ran toward the office at the back of the hangar.
Richard reached for his phone.
Emily’s eyes closed.
Daniel touched her cheek.
“Emily.”
No response.
“Emily.”
Cole checked her pulse.
“Her pressure’s dropping.”
Daniel stood.
“Get her out of here.”
Richard did not argue this time.
A woman in navy medical scrubs came running from the rear corridor with a hard-sided emergency bag. Daniel had seen her earlier beside the SUV but assumed she was part of the flight crew.
She moved between him and the stretcher.
“Sir, I need space.”
“What did you give her?”
“Please move.”
“What did you give her?”
“Midazolam, one milligram IV about forty minutes ago.”
Emily had told them not to.
Daniel looked at Richard.
The medic snapped, “I need everybody quiet.”
That did it.
For the next ninety seconds Richard Whitmore was just another frightened father standing uselessly while someone else cared for his child.
Daniel noticed that too.
The medic opened Emily’s IV fluids, repositioned her, checked oxygen saturation, listened to her lungs. Cole retrieved the oxygen mask. The other guard came back carrying equipment and nearly slipped on water tracked across the polished floor.
Richard stood close enough to interfere and far enough to pretend he was not.
Daniel watched his hands.
They were shaking.
Barely.
But they were.
Emily responded after the medic called her name several times.
Her eyelids fluttered.
Daniel exhaled.
The medic turned toward Richard.
“She needs an ER. I’m not putting her in the air with this pressure.”
Richard nodded once.
“North Valley.”
Daniel looked at him.
Richard met his eyes.
Neither man mentioned the case.
They transferred Emily into the black SUV. Daniel climbed beside the stretcher. The medic sat opposite him with the monitoring equipment. Cole took the front passenger seat.
Richard remained outside in the rain for several seconds, coat darkening at the shoulders, silver hair flattened by water.
Daniel expected him to take the second SUV.
Instead Richard came to the rear door.
“Daniel.”
Daniel looked at him.
Richard lowered his voice.
“There are things in that case that can destroy Emily.”
Daniel glanced at his wife.
She appeared unconscious again.
“Then you should’ve thought about that before slapping me.”
Richard ignored it.
“I’m not asking you to protect me.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I’m asking you to understand that truth is not the same thing as innocence.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“My brother died.”
“I know.”
“You buried what happened.”
Richard’s face changed.
For an instant, Daniel saw something almost ordinary there.
Regret, perhaps.
Or fatigue.
“I buried more than one thing that night.”
Then Cole shut the door.
The SUV pulled into the storm.
Daniel sat beside Emily while rain streamed across the windows and wondered whether he had just driven away with evidence of his wife’s crime hanging around his neck.
North Valley Regional had six emergency bays, a vending machine that ate Daniel’s five-dollar bill, and fluorescent lighting apparently designed to reveal every bad decision a person had ever made.
Emily was taken behind a curtain.
Daniel was told to wait.
He did badly.
He paced. He sat. He stood again. He bought coffee and forgot to drink it. He texted Owen’s old number because his thumb found the contact before his brain caught up.
The message showed green.
Of course it did.
May you like
You awake?
Daniel stared at the words.
