Chương 12
“Yes.”
“I buried him.”
Maya began crying quietly.
Margaret immediately regretted the cruelty.
Not because it was untrue.
Because it was aimed at the wrong person.
“I’m sorry,” Margaret said.
“No. You’re allowed.”
“I don’t want permission to be awful.”
A wet laugh came through the phone.
“Daniel says that too.”
Margaret pressed her forehead to the cold glass.
“What does he say?”
“That being hurt doesn’t make you right.”
“That sounds irritating.”
“He is incredibly irritating.”
Margaret smiled despite herself.
For the first time, Maya sounded like someone married to her son rather than someone who had stolen him.
“Will you come to Denver?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“As soon as the police let me leave.”
“Stay where you are until they’re satisfied you’re safe.”
Maya hesitated.
“You sound like him.”
“No. He sounds like me.”
Maya laughed.
It felt good.
That made Margaret feel disloyal to her anger.
Humans were inconvenient.
Before hanging up, Maya said, “Mrs. Whitmore.”
“Margaret.”
Another pause.
“Margaret. He kept your birthday in every password until I told him that was terrible security.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Thank you for telling me.”
Afterward she stayed by the window.
Richard approached but stopped several feet away.
“She blamed me too,” Margaret said.
“For what?”
“For choosing you.”
Richard’s face tightened.
“Did you?”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“Choose me.”
Margaret considered the question.
Snow streaked diagonally across the glass.
“I suppose I did, many times.”
He nodded.
She added, “I did not choose this.”
“I know.”
“No, Richard. I don’t think you do.”
He sat across from her.
For a while they watched the mountains.
He told her something she had never known.
The year after Daniel disappeared, Richard drove to New Mexico and watched him from across a grocery-store parking lot.
“He was buying charcoal,” Richard said.
Margaret stared.
“Charcoal.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I assume he intended to cook with it.”
Despite herself, she laughed.
Richard looked embarrassed.
“I had imagined the moment differently.”
“What moment?”
“Seeing him alive.”
He had expected revelation.
Instead Daniel wore shorts, pushed a shopping cart with one bad wheel, and argued with Maya about whether they needed two bags.
Richard sat in his car for twenty minutes.
He did not approach.
“Why not?”
“He looked happy.”
Margaret’s anger returned.
“So you left him alone out of generosity?”
“No.”
Richard looked at his hands.
“I was afraid he would tell me to go away.”
Margaret stared at him.
There it was.
Not strategy.
Not empire.
A father’s cowardice.
Richard had controlled Daniel because control was easier than risking rejection.
He had controlled Margaret for the same reason.
Not all evil came from hatred.
Some came from fear wearing expensive clothes.
“You should have gone to him,” she said.
“I know.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“You should have let him hate you if that was what he needed.”
Richard nodded.
“You don’t get credit for understanding this now.”
“I know.”
The repetition irritated her.
“Stop saying you know.”
He looked at her.
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Good.”
She stood.
“That is the first honest thing you’ve said in hours.”
Denver appeared near dawn as a pale glow beyond the storm.
The children finally slept.
Helen had dozed upright in a chair near the connecting door, one hand still resting beside her phone.
Richard sat alone at the dining table.
Margaret had not slept.
The brass key rested in her palm.
Locker 214.
The key tells her why I stayed dead.
Ava had arranged for law enforcement and outside counsel to meet them at the terminal. Judith Kane would be there too.
Margaret did not want an audience.
But private handling was how the family had reached this point.
At six twenty, the train rolled into Denver.
The storm had weakened to light snow.
The platform was almost empty.
Christmas wreaths hung beneath the station clocks.
No press.
No cameras.
Not yet.
Margaret carried Ellie while Noah wore his backpack.
Richard offered to take one of the bags.
Noah gave him the smallest one.
Margaret noticed.
She said nothing.
Ava Morales was waiting inside the private arrival area.
She was forty-something, short, dark-haired, wearing jeans beneath a camel coat and shoes clearly chosen in a hurry. She hugged Noah before greeting anyone else.
Then she turned to Margaret.
For a second neither woman knew whether to shake hands.
Ava solved it by saying, “You look like Daniel around the eyes.”
Margaret laughed once.
“So does apparently everyone except Daniel, according to him.”
Ava smiled.
“I like you already.”
Richard did not receive the same warmth.
“Mr. Whitmore.”
“Ms. Morales.”
“You’ve caused me a lot of paperwork.”
“So I understand.”
Judith Kane arrived with two attorneys.
A Denver detective and a federal investigator spoke with Ava near the entrance. They did not swoop in and confiscate everything. They asked questions. They documented. They waited for counsel.
Margaret appreciated procedure more than she ever had.
The key was photographed but remained with her while arrangements were made to access the locker with witnesses present.
Noah and Ellie were taken to a quiet family room with Helen.
Margaret insisted on going too.
The locker could wait thirty minutes.
Everyone looked surprised.
She did not explain.
She helped Ellie remove her boots.
Noah found crackers in a vending machine and complained that they cost four dollars.
Richard, standing in the doorway, said, “That’s outrageous.”
Noah looked at him.
“You’re rich.”
“That doesn’t make four-dollar crackers less outrageous.”
Noah considered that.
Then he handed Richard one.
It was not forgiveness.
It was a cracker.
Richard understood the difference.
At seven fifteen, Ava received a call from the hospital.
Daniel was asking for Margaret.
Her hands became useless.
Helen had to help her fasten her coat.
The hospital was fifteen minutes away on empty Christmas morning streets.
Margaret sat in the back seat of a black sedan with Noah and Ellie.
Richard was not invited.
May you like
He did not argue.
That mattered more than she expected.
