Chương 3
"Move."
"You need to listen to me first."
"I've been listening."
"No, you've been reacting."
Behind them, Elena shifted her weight carefully and tried to rise.
Her knees protested immediately.
Clara made a small sound against her shoulder, and Elena sank back down rather than risk losing balance.
Mark heard it.
His attention broke from Victoria and returned to the child.
"Call 911."
Victoria spun toward Elena.
"No."
Mark looked at his wife.
"No?"
"She's crying, she's conscious, Elena caught her."
"You don't know if she's hurt."
"An ambulance will turn this into something it doesn't need to be."
Elena stared at her.
Mark's expression hardened again, but this time there was no sudden movement in him.
"What exactly do you think this is?"
Victoria opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Mark pulled his phone from his pocket.
Victoria reached for it.
He stepped away before she could touch him.
"Don't."
"Think for one second."
"I am."
"Police will come."
"Good."
"Child Protective Services could come."
"Good."
"They'll question everyone."
"Good."
Victoria's voice sharpened.
"They could take Clara."
That stopped him.
Elena saw the fear land exactly where Victoria intended.
Mark glanced toward his daughter.
Clara's eyes were open now, wet and unfocused from crying, one cheek pressed against Elena's shoulder.
Mark lowered the phone slightly.
Victoria took a careful breath.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you."
Elena found her voice.
"She needs a doctor."
Victoria turned on her.
"You stay out of this."
"No."
Elena's answer came quietly.
Victoria stared at her.
Elena adjusted the blanket beneath Clara's head.
"She fell almost a full story."
"She didn't hit the floor."
"Her body still stopped hard when I caught her."
Mark looked at Elena.
"Did her head hit anything?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"I think so."
"You think?"
"I was trying not to let her die."
The words silenced all three of them.
Elena had not meant to say them that way.
She wished immediately that she could pull them back.
Mark's face changed.
He raised the phone again and made the call.
Victoria turned away.
The emergency dispatcher answered, and Mark gave the address in a voice so controlled it sounded detached.
He described a fall.
Then he corrected himself.
"She was dropped."
Victoria closed her eyes.
The dispatcher asked from what height.
Mark looked upward toward the landing.
"About fourteen feet."
Elena listened as he answered questions about Clara's breathing, consciousness, visible injuries, age, and whether she had vomited.
His hands stayed steady until the dispatcher asked who had dropped her.
He hesitated.
"My wife."
Victoria gave a short laugh that had no humor in it.
Then she walked toward the lower staircase.
Mark covered the phone.
"Where are you going?"
"To get away from you."
"No."
She stopped.
"You don't get to tell me where I can go."
"I'm telling you not to leave this room."
"For what, exactly?"
"Until the police get here."
Her face tightened.
"You called police too?"
"The dispatcher did."
Victoria looked toward the front doors.
Elena saw the calculation.
So did Mark.
He moved between Victoria and the entrance.
"Don't."
"You're trapping me in my own house."
"I'm asking you to stay."
"You just said you were telling me."
"Fine."
Mark's voice dropped.
"I'm telling you."
Victoria stared at him for several seconds.
Then, abruptly, she sat on the lowest stair.
The movement was almost ordinary.
She smoothed the fabric of her dress over her knees.
Her earrings caught the light when she looked down.
Elena could hear distant sirens.
They were faint at first.
Then clearer.
Victoria heard them too.
She pressed her fingers harder against her cheek.
"Your handprint is going to be on my face when they arrive."
Mark looked at her.
"I know."
"You think that helps you?"
"No."
"Do you think they'll believe you after they see it?"
Mark said nothing.
Victoria looked toward Elena.
"Do you?"
Elena did not answer.
The sirens grew louder.
Victoria smiled faintly, and something about the expression frightened Elena more than her anger had.
"People believe what fits."
Mark's eyes narrowed.
"What does that mean?"
"It means you've spent years making sure everyone knows how reasonable you are."
She looked at his suit, his tie bar, the phone still in his hand.
"The calm one."
"Victoria."
"The patient husband."
Her voice trembled now, but she kept going.
"The man who never raises his voice."
Mark's jaw tightened.
"You were very calm when you hit me."
Elena looked away.
He deserved that.
She did not want to think about it while Clara was in her arms, but it sat in the room with everything else.
Mark seemed to know it too.
Victoria blinked.
"You'll confess?"
"You think that makes you different?"
"From what?"
Her eyes filled.
"From me."
The sirens stopped outside.
For the first time, Victoria looked truly terrified.
Elena expected her to run.
Instead, she stood.
"Mark."
He looked at her.
"I didn't want to hurt Clara."
Elena's stomach tightened.
Mark's face went blank.
"You dropped her."
"I know."
"You dropped a two-year-old over a railing."
"I know what I did."
"Then don't tell me you didn't want to hurt her."
Victoria rubbed her forehead with trembling fingers.
"I needed Elena to catch her."
Elena stared at her.
Mark seemed not to understand the sentence.
"What?"
Victoria looked at Elena.
"You were supposed to be closer."
The front doors opened before anyone could answer.
Two paramedics entered first, carrying equipment, followed by a uniformed Dallas police officer.
The foyer changed instantly.
Voices became procedural.
Movements became purposeful.
The paramedics went directly to Elena.
One knelt beside Clara while the other asked Elena to describe exactly how she had caught her.
Elena tried.
Her words came out unevenly.
The paramedic placed a cervical collar nearby but did not put it on immediately.
May you like
He spoke softly to Clara, checked her pupils, touched her scalp, watched her breathing, and asked whether she could move her arms.
Clara cried when he tried to separate her from Elena.
