Chương 8
“She liked Vanessa.”
Hale said nothing.
Daniel turned another page.
A message from February.
Ava: Do you ever get sad because Dad works all the time?
Vanessa: Sometimes grown-ups work because they think taking care of people means providing things.
Ava: That’s dumb.
Vanessa: Sometimes grown-ups are dumb.
Daniel looked away.
He wanted the messages to make Vanessa simpler.
They did not.
She had been kind to Ava.
She had also stolen Ava’s voice after Ava died.
Both things were true.
“What happens to her?” he asked.
Hale answered carefully.
“That depends on the evidence, prosecutors, and what can be proved.”
“She impersonated a dead child.”
“Yes.”
“She interfered with communications while that child was dying.”
“We’re investigating the full scope.”
Daniel tapped the pages.
“You have it.”
“We have evidence. That’s not the same as having a complete case.”
Daniel leaned back.
He hated Hale for being measured.
Then he recognized the usefulness of a man who refused to become emotional on Daniel’s behalf.
Hale said, “There’s something else.”
Daniel looked at him.
“On Friday morning, after the first impersonated message, Ms. Cole searched flights from London to New York.”
Daniel frowned.
“She wanted to come home?”
“We don’t know why she searched.”
“What happened?”
“She did not book one.”
Daniel stared at the table.
Shah added, “Thirty minutes later she searched your company’s change-of-control bonus schedule.”
Daniel laughed quietly.
His lawyer looked at him with concern.
The acquisition had triggered a payment worth more than six million dollars to Vanessa if she remained employed through closing.
Money was not everything.
But six million dollars was not nothing.
Daniel remembered Friday afternoon in London.
Vanessa had stood at a window overlooking wet rooftops and asked him whether he ever got tired of winning.
He had kissed the back of her neck and told her to ask again after the signatures.
Ava was already dead.
The acquisition closed Friday at 4:03 p.m. London time.
Vanessa’s bonus vested.
Daniel sat through the rest of the interview.
Outside the station, reporters were waiting.
The story had broken.
He saw microphones, camera lenses, phones held above heads. Someone shouted, “Mr. Mercer, did you miss your daughter’s funeral because you were with your mistress?”
His attorney grabbed his elbow.
Daniel stopped.
For a second the crowd quieted, expecting a statement.
He looked at the faces.
People who did not know Ava.
People who would know her name by dinner.
Daniel almost spoke.
Then he saw one reporter glance at her phone while waiting, bored for half a second.
He understood something ugly and ordinary: by tomorrow, his daughter would be content.
He turned away.
At home Rebecca was furious.
“Why are there six cars outside?”
Daniel closed the door behind him.
“The story leaked.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did the company announce your resignation?”
“They had to disclose the leadership change.”
“And the affair?”
“No.”
Rebecca looked toward the windows.
“Somebody did.”
A television van parked across the road.
Daniel pulled the curtains.
Rebecca snapped, “Don’t.”
He stopped.
“I don’t want them seeing inside.”
“I don’t want the house dark.”
He released the curtain.
That became the rule.
No closed curtains during daylight.
Rebecca said she could not stand another thing being hidden.
For the next three days, people left flowers at the gate.
Some left cards for Ava.
Some left notes blaming Daniel.
One man drove past twice shouting something about adultery from his truck.
Greenwich police increased patrols after Rebecca found a stranger photographing the house from the edge of the property.
Daniel’s mother stayed in a nearby hotel because Rebecca could not bear another person under the roof.
Claire resigned from Mercer Rowan.
She came to the house Thursday afternoon carrying a paper grocery bag.
Daniel met her at the side door.
She looked exhausted.
“I brought soup.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked down at the bag.
“My mother does this.”
Daniel took it.
“Thank you.”
Claire had worked for him eight years.
She was forty-seven, divorced, frighteningly organized, and had once located a replacement passport for him in less than six hours on a Sunday in Madrid.
Now she would barely look at him.
“Come in.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Please.”
She stepped into the kitchen.
Rebecca was upstairs with her sister.
Daniel set the soup on the counter.
Claire stared at it.
“I called Vanessa at two ten Thursday.”
“I know.”
Her face changed.
“The police told you.”
“Yes.”
“I should have called the hotel.”
“You did.”
“After.”
Daniel looked at her.
She folded her arms.
“Rebecca called my direct number at two fifty-eight. I was in a meeting. I saw it afterward. Vanessa had already told me you knew.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
Claire looked angry.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Don’t decide what part of this belongs to me because it makes you feel generous.”
Daniel said nothing.
She rubbed her forehead.
“I spent eight years learning when not to interrupt you.”
He looked down.
Claire continued.
“You trained all of us.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Her voice shook.
“You rewarded people for protecting your attention. You called it discipline. You made family emergencies sound like inefficiency. Vanessa took it somewhere monstrous, but she didn’t invent the culture around you.”
Daniel leaned against the counter.
“I know.”
Claire gave a tired laugh.
“There. That.”
“What?”
“You say ‘I know’ whenever you want the other person to stop explaining your own behavior.”
He almost argued.
Then he stopped.
Claire noticed.
“Sorry,” she said.
“No.”
She looked toward the hall.
“Was the funeral beautiful?”
Daniel’s throat tightened.
“I wasn’t there.”
Claire covered her face.
“I’m sorry.”
He stared at the grocery bag.
“Apparently there were a lot of people.”
Claire nodded.
“Ava used to call me Miss Calendar.”
Daniel smiled despite himself.
“I didn’t know that.”
“She asked me once if my job was telling you what day it was.”
“That’s fairly accurate.”
Claire laughed, then cried.
May you like
The two sounds crossed strangely.
Daniel gave her a box of tissues.
