Chương 6
Elena's face burned.
"You expected me to catch a falling child."
"I thought you would."
"You thought."
"I've seen you with her."
Elena stared at her in disbelief.
"You used me."
Victoria looked away.
"She trusts you."
"That is not an answer."
"I needed a witness."
The officer said, "A witness to what?"
Victoria hesitated.
"That I had an accident."
Elena nearly laughed again.
"An accident."
Victoria turned toward her.
"I was going to say the blanket slipped."
"While you held her over the railing."
"I wasn't going to hold her that far out."
"But you did."
"I panicked."
"You opened your hands."
"I thought you'd catch her."
Elena's voice rose for the first time.
"You do not get to say that like it makes this better."
The officer stepped between them before either woman moved closer.
Victoria began crying then.
Not loudly.
Tears slipped down her face while she stared at the marble.
Elena felt no satisfaction.
Only exhaustion.
The second paramedic touched her elbow.
"We need to go."
Elena nodded.
As they moved toward the entrance, she looked back once.
Victoria sat beneath the staircase with her gold dress pooled around her knees.
Two police officers stood several feet away.
The house still looked flawless.
That seemed obscene.
Outside, the Texas heat hit Elena like a wall.
The ambulance doors were open.
Mark sat inside near Clara, one hand resting beside the toddler's leg without touching her.
He looked up when Elena approached.
"She awake?"
The paramedic nodded.
"Alert, crying appropriately, no obvious neurological deficit, but we still want imaging and observation."
Mark exhaled.
It was not relief exactly.
It was permission to keep breathing.
Elena climbed into the ambulance with help.
Her knees screamed when she bent them.
Mark looked at the blood on her stockings.
"You hurt yourself."
"I'm okay."
"Apparently nobody in this family knows what that phrase means."
The sentence came out sharper than he intended.
He looked away immediately.
Elena settled onto the bench.
For several seconds there was only the rustle of equipment and Clara's uneven sniffing.
Mark watched his daughter.
His daughter.
The words felt dangerous now.
Elena saw that too.
She said quietly, "She's still Clara."
Mark's eyes remained on the toddler.
"I know."
But his voice suggested that knowing and surviving the knowledge were not the same thing.
The ambulance began moving.
Clara whimpered when the vehicle turned.
Mark reached for her hand.
The paramedic allowed it.
Her fingers closed around his index finger immediately.
Mark stared at them.
His face crumpled for half a second before he forced it still again.
Elena looked toward the rear windows.
The mansion disappeared behind them.
She could not stop thinking about Victoria's sentence.
I needed a witness.
Not a murderer trying to hide.
Not a mother trying to kill.
Something stranger.
Something almost more disturbing because it required planning without fully understanding consequences.
Mark broke the silence.
"What would an accident have changed?"
Elena looked at him.
He wasn't really asking her.
He was assembling pieces out loud.
"Why make me believe Clara fell?"
The paramedic kept his attention on the monitor.
Elena said, "Maybe she wanted the test hidden."
"By dropping our child?"
He caught himself on the word our.
His face tightened.
Elena pretended not to notice.
Mark continued.
"That doesn't hide anything."
"No."
"It creates police reports, hospital records, questions."
"Maybe she didn't expect all that."
"Victoria expects consequences before she orders dinner."
Elena almost smiled despite herself.
Mark did not.
He rubbed his thumb over Clara's tiny knuckles.
"Something's missing."
Elena thought of the envelope.
"You said you made a copy."
Mark looked at her.
"I did."
"Where?"
He hesitated.
"In my office downtown."
"Did she know?"
"I don't know."
"She said you did."
"She may have guessed."
Elena leaned back carefully.
The ambulance bounced over a seam in the road.
Pain went through her knees.
Mark noticed.
"You really should let them look at you."
"They will."
"Good."
He stared down at Clara again.
After a moment he said, "The test wasn't mine."
Elena frowned.
"What?"
"I didn't order it."
The ambulance suddenly seemed smaller.
"Then who did?"
Mark looked toward her.
"Victoria did."
Elena waited.
Mark's mouth tightened.
"Using my name."
She stared at him.
"Why?"
"I found the charge on a card she thought I didn't review."
He rubbed his forehead.
"I thought she was testing me."
"For what?"
"Some hereditary condition."
He shook his head.
"It sounds stupid now."
"It didn't then."
"No."
He looked at Clara.
"I found the envelope this morning before I left."
Elena remembered Victoria entering the study behind her.
"Was it already open?"
"Yes."
"So she'd read it first."
"Probably."
"What did you do?"
"I copied the result."
"Why?"
Mark gave a humorless breath.
"Because after six years of marriage, I finally learned that when Victoria says something is nothing, it usually costs me later."
He reached into his pocket and stopped.
The officer at the mansion had told him not to touch anything in the study, but this was not there.
He pulled out his phone.
"The scan is in my work email."
Elena looked at the screen but could not read from where she sat.
Mark did not open it.
Instead he stared at the message list.
His face changed.
"What?"
He scrolled.
"There are three emails from the lab."
"Today?"
"No."
He looked at the timestamps.
"The first one is from four months ago."
Elena felt the hairs rise along her arms.
Mark opened it.
His eyes moved across the screen.
Then stopped.
The ambulance siren wailed above them as traffic parted outside.
Mark read the message again.
Elena watched the blood drain from his face.
"What does it say?"
He looked up.
"The test this morning wasn't the first one."
Mark enlarged the email until the text filled the screen.
May you like
The message had been sent from the laboratory's patient services address and addressed to him by full name.
It referred to a prior sample, a disputed result, and a request for confirmation before the laboratory would release additional records.
