Chương 2
Grace looked toward the door.
Julian saw it.
“Marcus.”
The guard stepped into view.
“Close the doors.”
Grace’s face hardened.
Not frightened now.
Something else.
“Please don’t do this in front of my daughter.”
“You brought my daughter into this first.”
“I didn’t bring her into anything.”
“Then explain the boots.”
Amara looked between them.
“My food is getting cold.”
Julian dragged his eyes away from Grace.
“Eat.”
Grace whispered, “Amara, don’t.”
The child’s lower lip pushed forward.
Julian disliked himself for noticing that Lily had done the same thing.
He disliked the memory more.
“Let her finish,” he said.
Grace remained standing.
Julian waited.
She eventually sat.
Nobody spoke until Amara had eaten enough chicken to satisfy her mother and hidden two carrots beneath a folded napkin badly enough to fool no one.
Then she tugged Julian’s sleeve.
“My mommy kept your little girl’s picture.”
Grace went completely pale.
Julian turned toward her.
“Where?”
Amara answered for her.
“In the blue box.”
Grace stood so fast the chair scraped loudly across the floor.
“That’s enough.”
Her voice broke on the last word.
Amara startled.
Grace immediately regretted it.
She crouched beside her daughter and took both small hands.
“Sweetheart, listen to me.”
“You yelled.”
“I know.”
“You don’t yell.”
“I know.”
Amara’s eyes filled.
Grace kissed her knuckles.
“I’m sorry.”
Julian watched them and felt something sharp under his ribs that had nothing to do with suspicion.
Grace rose and faced him.
“I’ll tell you.”
“Good.”
“But not with her here.”
“You don’t set conditions in my house.”
“No.”
Grace looked him directly in the eye for the first time since she had started working for him eight months earlier.
“But I set conditions around my child.”
Marcus shifted at the door.
Julian raised a hand before he could speak.
For years, people had mistaken Julian’s silence for patience.
Grace seemed to mistake it for nothing at all.
That interested him.
It also made him angrier.
“Take her to the kitchen.”
Grace did not move.
“She stays with Elena?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody stops me from leaving with her afterward?”
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“That depends on what you tell me.”
“Then no.”
Marcus took one step into the room.
Grace glanced at him and then back at Julian.
“You can frighten me if you need to.”
Her voice shook, ruining whatever courage the sentence might have claimed.
“You can fire me.”
She swallowed.
“But I’m not sending my daughter into another room while wondering whether I’ll be allowed to follow.”
Julian studied her.
There were a dozen men in his organization who would have called her disrespectful.
Two might have removed her from the room for it.
Julian found himself thinking about the way she had apologized to Amara after shouting.
No pride.
No performance.
Just repair.
“Marcus.”
“Yes.”
“Go back outside.”
Marcus did not like the instruction.
That showed in the pause.
He obeyed anyway.
Julian leaned back.
“Amara stays.”
Grace slowly sat again.
Julian folded his hands on the table.
“Start with how you know about Lily.”
Grace looked at her daughter.
Amara had begun breaking a dinner roll into tiny pieces and arranging them in a crooked line.
Grace rubbed her thumb against the side of her index finger.
“I knew her mother.”
Julian’s expression did not change.
Inside him, something old and sealed shifted.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“I knew everyone in Claire’s life.”
“No.”
Grace gave a small, tired shake of her head.
“You knew everyone she let you see.”
Amara held up two pieces of bread.
“This one is Mommy and this one is me.”
Neither adult answered.
She put the pieces together.
Grace looked down at them.
“Claire came to a women’s health clinic in Newark where I worked the front desk.”
Julian’s eyes narrowed.
“Claire had private doctors.”
“I know.”
“She never went to Newark for medical care.”
“It wasn’t medical care.”
Grace’s hands stopped moving.
“She came because she was afraid somebody was watching her.”
Julian’s chair creaked beneath the pressure of his grip.
“Who?”
“She never told me.”
“Then why come to you?”
“She didn’t come to me.”
Grace looked toward the dark windows.
“She came to the clinic because my supervisor knew how to connect women with legal aid, emergency housing, financial counseling, whatever they needed without putting everything through insurance.”
Julian stared at her.
“Claire didn’t need money.”
“Fear isn’t impressed by money.”
His face hardened.
Grace flinched but continued.
“She used a different name the first time.”
“What name?”
“Caroline Reed.”
Julian said nothing.
Claire’s middle name had been Caroline.
Her mother’s maiden name was Reed.
A private alias, simple enough to remember under stress.
Amara pushed a piece of bread toward him.
“This one can be you.”
Julian did not touch it.
Grace’s voice softened.
“She came three times.”
“When?”
“The month before the crash.”
The word crash seemed vulgar in that room.
Too small for a black SUV twisted against a concrete barrier.
Too clean for the hospital corridor afterward.
Julian’s gaze fell to his plate.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“Why wait eight months to tell me?”
Grace’s answer came too quickly.
“Because I was scared.”
He looked up.
“That’s not enough.”
“No.”
She breathed through her nose.
“It isn’t.”
Amara began humming to herself.
Grace watched her for a moment before continuing.
“The last time Claire came to the clinic, she had Lily with her.”
Julian’s eyes fixed on Grace.
“She was wearing the yellow rain boots.”
Grace’s mouth trembled.
“And Claire gave me something.”
Julian’s voice became very quiet.
“What?”
“A key.”
“To what?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“And now?”
Grace met his stare.
“Now I know it opens a safe-deposit box.”
Julian’s pulse thudded once at his throat.
“Where?”
“I’m not telling you yet.”
Marcus would have laughed if he had heard that.
May you like
Julian almost did.
Instead, he said, “You walked into my home under a false pretense, carrying information about my dead wife and child, and you think you control when I hear the rest?”
