Chương 4
At eleven seventeen, someone knocked again.
Denise stood.
“Expecting anybody?”
“No.”
The knock came a second time.
Rachel checked through the peephole.
Alexander Mercer stood in the hallway.
Alone.
She opened the door but left the chain on.
“You found me.”
“You weren’t difficult to find.”
She stared at him.
He noticed.
“That was your line.”
“I know.”
“I deserved that.”
“Probably.”
He looked exhausted.
Without the tuxedo, he seemed less like a billionaire and more like a man who had driven too far without sleeping. He wore dark pants and a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms.
“I came to ask if you’d agree to a DNA test.”
Rachel had expected the request.
Still, hearing it changed the air.
Denise appeared behind her.
Alexander glanced at her.
“Hello.”
“Divorce lawyer,” Denise said.
Rachel turned.
“You’re not a lawyer.”
“No, but he doesn’t know that.”
Alexander looked between them.
Something in his face almost softened.
Rachel closed the door, removed the chain, and opened it again.
“You have five minutes.”
He entered.
The apartment suddenly seemed even smaller.
Alexander noticed the washing-machine vibration beneath his shoes.
“What is that?”
“Laundry downstairs.”
“I thought the building was shaking.”
“It is.”
Denise handed him coffee without asking whether he wanted any.
He took it.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Four minutes.”
Rachel sat across from him.
Alexander remained standing until she pointed at the chair.
He sat.
“DNA test,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Through whose lab?”
“One we agree on.”
“Results to both of us at the same time.”
“Yes.”
“No private testing through your company.”
“Agreed.”
“No taking my hair off the couch like a crime show.”
Alexander looked offended.
“I wouldn’t.”
Denise said, “Rich people absolutely would.”
He glanced at her.
“She staying?”
“Yes.”
“Apparently.”
Rachel folded her arms.
“What happens if I’m Claire?”
Alexander looked at the table.
“That depends what you want.”
“Wrong answer.”
He looked up.
“What’s the right one?”
“I don’t know. But you came here asking for proof that I’m your dead wife. You should have thought one step past the laboratory.”
His jaw tightened.
“I haven’t slept.”
“Neither have I.”
“I spent nine years believing you were dead.”
“And I spent nine years not knowing who I was.”
The words came out sharper than Rachel intended.
Alexander recoiled slightly.
Good, an ugly part of her thought.
Then she hated herself for being glad.
He rubbed one hand over his face.
“You’re right.”
“Don’t agree with me just because you feel guilty.”
“I’m agreeing because you’re right.”
“You used to do that.”
He went still.
Rachel did too.
She had not meant to say it.
“Do what?” he asked.
“Agree with me when you wanted an argument to end.”
A memory flickered.
Alexander in a kitchen.
You’re right.
Claire—Rachel—throwing a dish towel at him.
Don’t you dare “you’re right” me when you haven’t listened.
Rachel stood so quickly that the chair scraped backward.
Denise rose.
“I’m okay.”
Alexander did not move.
“What did you remember?”
“Nothing useful.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Claire—”
“Rachel.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“Rachel.”
She gripped the counter.
“I’ll do the test.”
Alexander nodded.
“But there’s another test I want.”
“What?”
“The body.”
He stared at her.
“The woman you buried.”
His face hardened.
“That’s not necessary.”
“It is to me.”
“The DNA will tell us who you are.”
“It won’t tell us who she was.”
Alexander looked away.
Rachel watched him carefully.
For the first time since the yacht, she saw resistance that was not grief.
“Why don’t you want to know?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You did without moving your mouth.”
Denise quietly sat back down.
Alexander placed the untouched coffee on the table.
“The body was identified nine years ago.”
“Apparently badly.”
“There were dental records.”
“Then either I’m not Claire or those records were wrong.”
“Yes.”
“Which makes you curious, doesn’t it?”
His silence answered.
Rachel leaned against the counter.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Alexander looked at her for several seconds.
Then he said, “Victoria helped identify the body.”
The washing machines below entered a spin cycle.
The cups in Rachel’s cabinet gave a faint rattle.
Denise stopped pretending not to listen.
Rachel touched the locket.
“How?”
“She was Claire’s older sister.”
The room seemed to narrow.
Rachel stared at him.
“Victoria is my sister?”
“If you’re Claire.”
The woman’s hand in Rachel’s memory returned.
Diamond ring.
Fingers around her arm.
Rain against marina windows.
A voice.
You always make everything harder.
Rachel’s knees weakened.
She sat.
Alexander saw it.
“What?”
Rachel shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“Rachel.”
“I said nothing.”
But now she understood why Victoria had recognized the necklace.
And why the first emotion on her face had not been grief.
It had been fear.
The DNA test took four days.
Those four days were worse than the yacht.
Alexander’s attorneys arranged a neutral accredited laboratory after Rachel’s newly retained lawyer—the actual lawyer Denise had recommended—reviewed the procedure. Samples were collected from Rachel and Ethan separately. Alexander offered his own sample as an additional comparison.
Rachel refused to stay at home afterward because reporters had found the building.
She moved temporarily into Denise’s guest room.
Denise owned three cats despite having told Rachel for two years that she owned two. The third, an obese orange animal named Kevin, apparently lived mostly inside a linen closet and emerged only for tuna.
“Why did you hide a cat?”
“I didn’t hide him.”
“You said you had two.”
“I forgot Kevin.”
“How do you forget eighteen pounds of mammal?”
Kevin looked offended.
Rachel laughed.
Then she cried in the shower twenty minutes later.
She hated that grief could coexist with stupid things.
She hated even more that ordinary life kept happening.
Denise needed groceries.
The garbage had to go out.
A dentist sent Rachel a reminder about a cleaning.
May you like
Someone from her credit-card company asked whether she had made a suspicious forty-three-dollar purchase in Jacksonville.
The world had learned she might be a woman who had been dead for nine years, and her electric bill still arrived.
