Chương 2
It had seemed less frightening than remaining Jane Doe.
Alexander stopped several feet away.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
Rachel touched the locket again.
“I told her. I’ve always had it.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I don’t have another answer.”
Victoria moved between them.
“This is insane. Ethan, come here.”
The boy buried his face against Rachel.
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“No!”
Victoria reached toward him.
Rachel reacted before thinking.
She turned her body slightly, placing herself between Victoria and the child.
Victoria stared at her.
It was a small movement.
It changed everything.
“You don’t get to do that,” Victoria said.
Rachel’s heart was beating so hard that the locket moved against her fingers.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re holding my stepson.”
“He grabbed me.”
“And you’re encouraging him.”
Rachel looked down.
Ethan’s hands were twisted into the fabric of her apron.
“Sweetheart,” she said carefully, “you need to go to your dad.”
Ethan looked up at her.
“You call me bug.”
Rachel stopped breathing.
Alexander made a sound that was almost a cough.
Victoria’s face tightened.
“Enough.”
She stepped toward Rachel and lifted her hand.
Rachel saw it coming.
She did not move quickly enough.
Alexander did.
He caught Victoria’s wrist before her palm reached Rachel’s face.
The movement was abrupt but controlled. Victoria’s weight carried her forward; Alexander steadied her by the forearm before releasing some of the pressure on her wrist.
“Touch my wife again,” he said, “and you’re off this yacht.”
Nobody spoke.
Victoria stared at him.
“Your... wife?”
The words came out much smaller than anything she had said before.
Alexander released her wrist.
His face had lost color.
He looked at Rachel.
“I watched them bury you nine years ago.”
Rachel’s fingers found the tiny latch on the locket.
For nine years she had been unable to open it.
Not because it was locked.
Because she had been afraid.
The locket was the only object found on her body that appeared personal. Doctors, social workers, police officers, and eventually Rachel herself had tried to understand it. The hinge was damaged and the case had corroded at one edge. A jeweler had once offered to pry it open.
Rachel had refused.
She had told herself she did not want it damaged.
That had been a lie.
Some private part of her had understood that whatever was inside might answer a question she was not ready to have answered.
Now Ethan was holding her.
Alexander Mercer was staring at her as if the dead had walked into his house.
Rachel pressed her thumbnail beneath the damaged clasp.
It opened.
Inside was a photograph.
The image was faded and water-stained.
But it was clear enough.
A younger Alexander stood on a beach with one arm around a dark-haired woman.
Rachel.
Between them, held against Rachel’s chest, was a baby.
On the back, in handwriting that made Rachel’s stomach turn before she understood why, were four words.
Our ridiculous little family.
The yacht tilted beneath her.
Or perhaps she did.
“Rachel?”
That was one of the event managers.
Rachel closed the locket.
She looked at Alexander.
“My name,” she said, “is Rachel Hale.”
Alexander’s jaw moved.
He seemed to have trouble making his mouth work.
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
Ethan began crying then, but quietly, almost angrily, rubbing his face against Rachel’s apron as if embarrassed by it.
Rachel looked around at the guests.
At Victoria.
At Alexander.
At the broken glasses.
At the silver tray lying upside down near her feet.
Then she did the only thing that made sense.
She removed Ethan’s hands from her waist.
“I need to get off this boat.”
Alexander stepped forward.
“Claire—”
Rachel flinched.
“Don’t call me that.”
He stopped.
She bent, picked up the damaged tray, and immediately felt absurd for doing it.
A deckhand stared at her.
Rachel handed him the tray.
“Sorry.”
The deckhand blinked.
“For what?”
She looked at the champagne on the floor.
Then at Victoria.
A laugh almost escaped her.
She had no idea.
“Just... sorry.”
She walked toward the crew corridor.
Ethan tried to follow.
Alexander caught him gently around the shoulders.
“Dad!”
“Give her a minute.”
“She’s leaving.”
“I know.”
“You always let her leave!”
Alexander’s expression changed.
Rachel heard it.
She did not turn around.
She made it through the service door before her hands began shaking.
In the pantry, a junior server named Melissa was arranging replacement glasses.
She looked up.
“Oh my God.”
Rachel leaned against the stainless-steel counter.
Melissa put down the glass.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to get somebody?”
“No.”
“Do you want water?”
Rachel nearly said no again.
Then she nodded.
Melissa poured it.
Rachel drank half the glass too quickly and coughed.
“Slow down.”
“I know how water works.”
Melissa stared at her.
Rachel stared back.
Then, impossibly, both women laughed.
It lasted perhaps two seconds.
Rachel covered her mouth.
The laugh turned into something dangerous, so she stopped it.
Melissa had seen enough of the confrontation through the open service door to understand that questions would be cruel.
She leaned against the opposite counter instead.
After a while, she said, “For what it’s worth, I never liked the red dress.”
Rachel looked at her.
“What?”
“Mrs. Mercer’s dress.”
“That’s what you have?”
“I’m trying not to ask whether you’re secretly dead.”
Rachel put the water down.
“Thank you.”
“Sure.”
“For not asking.”
Melissa nodded.
A minute later, the event manager entered.
“Rachel.”
“I’m leaving.”
“I assumed.”
“I know we’re understaffed.”
“Rachel.”
“I can finish resetting the—”
“Go.”
Rachel looked at her.
The manager’s name was Denise. Fifty-two, divorced twice, terrifying about fingerprints on glassware, unexpectedly sentimental about stray cats.
Denise lowered her voice.
“Go before somebody decides this is content.”
Rachel glanced toward the dining deck.
Several guests already had phones out.
Of course they did.
Present-day grief came with cameras.
“I need my bag.”
“I’ll get it.”
“No. I can—”
“Sit down.”
May you like
Rachel almost argued.
Then she sat on a crate of mineral water.
