Chương 2
Not at him.
“Unlock the door.”
“It opens from the inside.”
“Then move away from it.”
“You struck me, tried to take evidence from a minor, and apparently knew a confidential instruction from a dead client that I never discussed with you.”
“You think that box makes you important?”
“No.”
Bennett placed the envelope back on the desk.
“I think it makes me worried.”
Noah’s breathing had become loud.
Ethan squeezed his hand.
Noah whispered, “I want Aunt Leah.”
Rachel finally looked at him.
Something broke across her expression and disappeared so quickly Ethan almost missed it.
“I know, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call him that,” Ethan said.
Rachel stared at him.
He immediately wished he could pull the words back.
“What?”
“You only call him sweetheart when you’re scared.”
That was not entirely true. She had called Noah sweetheart when he had strep throat, when he got stitches after falling from the swing, when he slept through their father’s memorial service with his head in her lap.
But Ethan had noticed lately that she also used it when she wanted Noah to stop asking questions.
Rachel’s eyes went wet.
She did not cry.
She smoothed the front of her camel coat instead.
Bennett picked up his desk phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“My paralegal first.”
“You don’t need police.”
“I didn’t say police.”
“You locked the door.”
“The front door, Rachel. Anyone in here can leave.”
Bennett pressed a button.
A woman answered from the outer office.
“Karen, please cancel my eleven-thirty. And call Claire Moreno. Tell her I need her here in person.”
Rachel’s head lifted.
“No.”
Bennett looked at her.
“Yes.”
Ethan knew the name Claire only because his father had once said it at dinner. Claire says paperwork is what adults invent when they don’t trust memory. His father had laughed. Rachel had not.
Bennett added, “And ask Mr. Green from upstairs to come down.”
Rachel gave a short, humorless laugh.
“A witness?”
“Yes.”
“For what? You think I’m going to hit you again?”
“I didn’t think you were going to hit me the first time.”
That stopped her.
Noah had begun rubbing the key mark left in his palm even though Bennett still had the key.
Ethan watched him.
“When did Dad give you that?”
Noah’s eyes stayed on the desk.
“In the garage.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Before he died?”
Noah looked offended.
“Obviously.”
Rachel shut her eyes again.
Bennett pulled out a chair.
“Everybody sit down.”
Nobody did.
A knock came from the outer office.
Bennett opened the interior office door but kept the suite’s front door locked until his paralegal announced that a man named Green was there. Bennett admitted him. Mr. Green was a heavyset accountant from the floor above who smelled faintly of peppermint gum and printer toner.
He looked at Bennett’s cheek.
Then at Rachel.
“Dan?”
“I’m fine,” Bennett said.
Mr. Green glanced at the children and immediately stopped looking curious.
“All right.”
Bennett gestured toward a chair near the door.
“I need you to sit there for a few minutes. I’ll explain afterward.”
Mr. Green sat.
Rachel muttered, “This is absurd.”
Nobody answered.
The absurdity, Ethan thought, was that the thermostat displayed seventy-two degrees even though the office felt freezing.
He sat beside Noah.
Their knees touched.
Bennett put the papers back into the box without reading farther.
“You’re not opening it?” Rachel asked.
“Not without Claire.”
“So now you’re following procedure.”
Bennett’s jaw tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No, it means something.”
Rachel looked at Ethan and Noah again.
“Not in front of them.”
Bennett’s voice dropped.
“I think we passed that point when you slapped me in front of them.”
Rachel flinched.
Ethan stared at the carpet.
His mother had slapped him once.
Only once.
He had been five and run into the street after a rubber ball. The slap came after she dragged him back by his shirt. She had started crying before he did and sat on the curb holding him so tightly that he could barely breathe.
Afterward she had apologized every day for a week.
This was different.
She had hit Bennett because she was afraid of what he knew.
Or what he might learn.
Ethan’s stomach hurt.
Claire Moreno arrived twenty-eight minutes later.
To Ethan it felt like half a day.
During that time no one opened the box. Mr. Green answered two emails on his phone. Karen brought paper cups of water and a packet of peanut-butter crackers for the boys. Noah ate one cracker and placed the other five back in the sleeve with unusual care.
Rachel stood near the wall beneath Bennett’s law-school certificate.
She did not touch her phone.
Claire entered wearing black slacks, a gray jacket, and white running shoes. She was in her early forties, with dark hair twisted at the back of her head and reading glasses hanging from a cord around her neck.
She looked first at the boys.
Then the box.
Then Bennett’s face.
“What happened to you?”
“Rachel.”
Claire turned.
Rachel said, “He provoked me.”
Bennett gave her a look.
Rachel rubbed her forehead.
“Fine. I hit him.”
Claire breathed out slowly.
“Children saw it?”
“Yes,” Bennett said.
Rachel said, “Claire, please don’t start.”
“I haven’t started anything.”
“You’re already doing that voice.”
“What voice?”
“The calm one.”
Claire pulled out a chair.
“I have one voice.”
“You have seventeen voices, and that one means somebody’s life is about to become a file number.”
Mr. Green made a small cough that might have been laughter.
Rachel looked at him.
He became intensely interested in his phone.
Claire took the chair opposite the boys.
“Ethan? Noah? I’m Claire. I knew your dad.”
Ethan nodded.
Noah said, “Did everybody know my dad?”
“A lot of people did.”
“He talked too much,” Ethan said.
The words escaped him.
Claire smiled.
“A little.”
Rachel looked toward the window.
The tension loosened for one second.
May you like
Then Bennett told Claire about the key.
He did not dramatize it. He described Noah dropping it, Rachel’s reaction, the box, the written instruction, and Ethan’s statement about the trust.
