Chương 6
Rosalie rubbed the seam of the hospital blanket between her fingers. “That’s a cruel question tonight.”
“I’m not asking because I need reassurance.”
“Then why?”
“Because people have been making decisions around us for months, and I participated. I need to know which ones were yours.”
She looked toward the closed door.
“I wanted to leave Pinecrest.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
The answer hurt less than he expected. Perhaps because honesty, however bleak, was the first thing in the marriage that belonged to them.
A physician named Dr. Patel examined Rosalie’s injuries and asked Manuel to leave during the private interview. He went without argument. In the hallway, he called Maya.
She was driving toward the hospital from the city.
“What is in the deposit box?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You said it could prove something about Lorelei’s death.”
“I said Rosalie asked what would happen if she could prove it. She found references to a box in old trust correspondence. L.D. 317 appears in a handwritten inventory created by Lorelei’s attorney three months before she died.”
“How did Rosalie get the correspondence?”
“She photographed documents in Emmett’s study.”
“When?”
“During your engagement party.”
Manuel remembered Rosalie disappearing for twenty minutes. He had assumed she was escaping his cousins.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because you were reporting everything to your mother.”
He stood beside a vending machine that hummed loudly in the quiet corridor.
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s accurate.”
“I wasn’t spying.”
“You sent your mother the revised prenuptial terms. She forwarded them to Emmett.”
The memory arrived unpleasantly whole. Elena had asked to review the agreement because Nelson Development faced exposure if the Durham partnership collapsed. Manuel had sent it. Two days later, Emmett’s counsel withdrew the only clause allowing Rosalie immediate independent access to a portion of her trust after marriage.
Manuel had accepted the explanation that the clause created tax complications.
“Did Rosalie know?”
“She suspected.”
He looked through the small glass panel in the exam-room door. Rosalie sat with Dr. Patel, her hands folded between her knees.
“Why agree to marry me?”
“Ask her.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“She wanted to leave.”
Maya was quiet for a moment. “That may have been the most honest answer available.”
When Dr. Patel allowed Manuel back inside, Rosalie had been given pain medication and a cup of tea she had not touched. The physician explained that the fresh injuries did not require admission. The older scars and her account of prior confinement would be documented. A hospital social worker could arrange emergency lodging and protective resources.
Rosalie looked at Manuel. “I have an apartment.”
“No, you don’t,” Maya said from the doorway.
She wore dark trousers, a wool coat, and running shoes, as though she had dressed for several possible emergencies. Her black hair was pulled into a knot that had partially escaped during the drive.
Rosalie frowned. “The apartment on Hawthorne.”
“The lease is held by a Durham property company. The building manager received instructions tonight not to admit you.”
Manuel stared at her. “How do you know?”
“Rosalie’s neighbor called me after security arrived.”
Rosalie looked down at the tea. “Mrs. Alvarez.”
“She told them she was boiling sugar for caramel and would open the door when she was done. She has not opened the door.”
A faint expression passed over Rosalie’s face. Fondness, then worry.
“Is she safe?”
“I told her not to engage.”
Manuel said, “You can stay at my place.”
Both women looked at him.
He raised his hands. “It has locks. That’s the complete sales pitch.”
Rosalie asked, “Does your mother have a key?”
“Yes.”
“Then no.”
Maya removed her coat. “I booked two rooms under my firm’s corporate account at a hotel near the courthouse. Security has your names and photographs of Emmett’s men. It’s imperfect, but it’s not Durham property.”
Rosalie nodded.
A nurse entered with discharge forms. “Mrs. Nelson?”
Rosalie flinched almost invisibly at the name.
Manuel noticed.
So did Maya.
No one commented.
By two in the morning, they were in a suite at the hotel, with a deputy’s incident number, photographs of Rosalie’s injuries, the dress secured in a garment preservation box, and the key locked in the room safe. Maya slept in the adjoining room after placing a chair beneath the connecting-door handle.
Manuel took the couch.
Rosalie stood at the window wearing borrowed sweatpants and one of Maya’s law-school shirts. Traffic moved through wet streets below. She had removed the pearl earrings but still held them in one hand.
“My mother gave these to me when I was sixteen,” she said. “She said pearls looked better when they weren’t perfect.”
Manuel adjusted the couch pillow, which was too small to be useful. “Was she kind?”
“When no one was watching.”
“That’s a strange qualification.”
“She was afraid of him.”
“So were you.”
“I still am.”
There was no self-pity in the admission. That made it heavier.
Manuel sat. “Tell me about the scars.”
Rosalie closed her fingers around the earrings.
“You don’t have to,” he added.
“You asked.”
“I can ask badly.”
She remained at the window. “When I was nineteen, I tried to leave after my first year of college. My father said I was unstable. Dr. Voss signed an emergency evaluation. I was taken to a private clinic outside the county.”
“Were you ill?”
“I wasn’t sleeping. I had panic attacks. I drank too much twice and called my father from a dorm bathroom because I thought I was dying. That was enough for him to build a story around.”
“How long were you there?”
“Six weeks.”
“Against your will?”
“The first three days were legal. After that, I was told the paperwork had been extended. It hadn’t.”
Manuel looked at her wrists.
“They restrained you.”
“I fought when they gave me injections.”
His jaw tightened.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?”
“Become a man who needs rage to believe me.”
May you like
The sentence struck with embarrassing accuracy.
He let his hands rest open on his knees.
