Chương 10
“Vanessa is cooperating,” he said.
Rebecca held her mug with both hands.
“Why?”
“Her attorneys believe the digital evidence is strong.”
Daniel said, “Six million dollars.”
Hale looked at him.
“That appears relevant.”
Rebecca asked, “Was it the reason?”
“We may never be able to reduce a person’s reason to one thing.”
Daniel disliked the answer.
Hale continued.
“She says she initially intercepted the calls because she believed Mr. Mercer would leave negotiations if he knew about the accident.”
“I would have.”
Vanessa’s voice was not there to contradict him.
Hale nodded.
“After she learned Ava had died, she says she became afraid.”
Rebecca asked, “Of prison?”
“No. At that point she says she wasn’t thinking about criminal exposure.”
“What was she afraid of?”
“Losing her job. Losing the bonus. Losing Mr. Mercer. Being exposed publicly. She describes it as a cascading panic.”
Rebecca stared into her coffee.
“A cascading panic that lasted through hair and makeup for dinner.”
Hale did not defend Vanessa.
“She says each lie made the previous lie harder to reverse.”
Daniel looked toward the hallway.
“That part I understand.”
Rebecca glanced at him.
He continued.
“You lie once because the truth feels inconvenient. Then the truth becomes humiliating. Then expensive. Then catastrophic.”
Hale watched him.
Daniel said, “Eventually you tell yourself the lie is protecting everyone.”
Rebecca looked away.
Hale nodded.
“That is consistent with what she described.”
Daniel asked, “Why Ava’s account?”
“She believed a message from Ava would stop you from calling home.”
The simplicity of it made Daniel nauseous.
Not a sophisticated criminal plan.
A practical assessment of him.
Vanessa had known that if Rebecca demanded attention, Daniel might resist.
If Ava said everything was fine, he would accept it.
Because he wanted everything to be fine.
Hale said, “She sent the second message Friday morning after Mrs. Mercer continued attempting contact through colleagues.”
Daniel remembered that message.
Mom’s being dramatic. I’m fine. Love you.
He had replied with a laughing emoji.
His hand tightened around the mug.
Rebecca noticed.
“What?”
Daniel shook his head.
“What did you answer?”
“Nothing.”
She stared at him.
He told her.
Rebecca stood and walked to the sink.
She put her coffee down too hard.
A crack appeared along the handle.
“Rebecca.”
“Don’t.”
He stayed seated.
She pressed both hands against the counter.
“She was in the funeral home.”
Daniel lowered his head.
“I know.”
“I was choosing a casket before we decided on cremation, and you sent a laughing face to someone pretending our dead daughter was making fun of me.”
“I know.”
Rebecca turned around.
“Stop saying that.”
Daniel nodded.
“You’re right.”
She cried then.
Not loudly.
Her body simply seemed to lose the argument with itself.
Daniel remained at the table.
He wanted to hold her.
He did not assume permission.
Hale stood.
“I can come back.”
Rebecca wiped her face.
“No.”
The detective hesitated.
She took a breath.
“Finish.”
Hale sat again.
Vanessa had confessed to deleting voicemail notifications, blocking Rebecca, misleading Claire and Daniel’s security staff, and accessing Ava’s account. Investigators were still determining which offenses prosecutors could prove and which corporate systems had been misused.
Daniel asked whether Vanessa had caused or influenced Ava’s accident.
“No evidence of that,” Hale said firmly.
It was important.
Daniel had secretly wanted the answer to be yes.
A murderer would have been easier.
A villain could hold everything.
Instead Ava had died because a delivery driver glanced down at the wrong moment and entered a curve too fast.
Vanessa had not killed her.
Daniel had not killed her.
Rebecca had not killed her by losing twelve minutes to a dead battery.
Still, choices surrounded the death like broken glass.
The driver’s.
Daniel’s.
Vanessa’s.
Small choices, large choices, choices unrelated to the impact itself but permanently attached to what followed.
Rebecca asked, “What happens now?”
Hale looked tired.
“The legal process moves slowly.”
“Good.”
Daniel looked at her.
She shrugged.
“I don’t want anything else to happen fast.”
Autumn arrived.
The public attention did not disappear, but it changed shape.
Vanessa’s case moved from front pages to business sections and then mostly to court calendars. Mercer Rowan appointed an interim chief executive. An internal investigation found that Daniel had violated disclosure and workplace-relationship policies. The board canceled part of his deferred compensation and initiated efforts to recover some incentive payments connected to decisions involving Vanessa.
Daniel did not fight them.
His lawyers were furious.
“You are conceding things we could negotiate,” one said.
Daniel sat across from three attorneys in a Midtown conference room.
“For years I negotiated every consequence.”
“That is literally what lawyers do.”
“I know.”
One attorney sighed.
“You don’t have to punish yourself through corporate governance.”
Daniel looked at him.
“That’s a sentence only a lawyer could say.”
The attorney almost smiled.
Daniel did too.
It was the first joke he had made in weeks.
He still did not contest the clawback.
Money, he discovered, could become abstract surprisingly quickly when there was enough of it.
Time could not.
Rebecca filed for divorce in October.
She told him at the breakfast table.
Daniel was eating toast.
She slid no dramatic envelope toward him. Her attorney would handle documents.
“I’m filing today.”
He stopped chewing.
“All right.”
Rebecca frowned.
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
He set the toast down.
“I don’t want a divorce.”
Her eyes filled with immediate anger.
“Then why did you plan one?”
“I planned to leave.”
“Yes, Daniel. That’s generally how divorce begins.”
“I know.”
She gave him a warning look.
“Sorry.”
They sat in silence.
A garbage truck backed somewhere down the road, beeping rhythmically.
Daniel asked, “Are you moving?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Rebecca looked surprised.
He continued.
“You should keep the house.”
“I don’t know if I want it.”
“Then sell it.”
“Do you?”
Daniel thought about the foyer.
May you like
The memorial table was gone now. The urn remained upstairs in Rebecca’s room. Ava’s backpack was in her closet.
“No.”
