Chương 6
She appreciated that.
Ethan sat beside her on a bench.
For an hour, they did almost nothing important.
He told her about school.
He hated fractions.
He liked a girl named Zoe but insisted that this information was classified.
He had recently learned that his father could not whistle.
Alexander disputed this.
He attempted to demonstrate.
The sound he produced resembled air escaping a bicycle tire.
Rachel laughed so hard she had to cover her face.
Then she remembered another sound.
Alexander whistling badly in a kitchen nine years earlier.
Claire shouting from another room, “Stop torturing the dog.”
There had been no dog.
She remembered saying it anyway.
The memory hurt less than the others.
That frightened her.
Comfort was dangerous because it could become expectation.
When Ethan went to buy lemonade with Alexander’s security driver, Rachel and Alexander remained on the bench.
“You kept Mr. Bite.”
“Ethan kept Mr. Bite.”
“You could have thrown it away.”
“I tried once.”
She looked at him.
“He found it in the trash and didn’t speak to me for two days.”
“That seems reasonable.”
“I apologized to a stuffed dinosaur.”
“Also reasonable.”
They watched Ethan at the lemonade stand.
Rachel said, “Tell me about us.”
Alexander’s face tightened.
“Which part?”
“The bad part.”
He looked at her.
“You keep giving me the museum version.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. Happy photographs. Cute stories. The time I painted the bathroom the wrong color.”
“It was orange.”
“I know. You’ve mentioned it three times.”
“It was extremely orange.”
“Alexander.”
He looked down.
Rachel waited.
Finally he said, “We were in trouble.”
“How much?”
“A lot.”
“Were we separating?”
“No.”
“Were we talking about it?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
That hurt.
Rachel had asked for it.
She made herself remain still.
“Why?”
“I worked constantly. You hated what money was doing to us. I thought that was hypocritical because you liked the house and the schools and the vacations.”
“That sounds like something I would hate hearing.”
“You did.”
“What else?”
“You thought I made decisions without you.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
Rachel almost smiled.
“Good.”
“What?”
“I was starting to worry dead Claire was annoyingly perfect.”
Alexander looked at her.
“She wasn’t.”
“Thank God.”
“She could be vicious.”
“Better.”
“She once put my phone in the freezer.”
“Why?”
“I kept checking email during dinner.”
“That’s funny.”
“It took me four hours to find it.”
“That’s very funny.”
He smiled.
Then it disappeared.
“The night you vanished, we had fought that morning.”
Rachel looked toward Ethan.
“About Victoria?”
“About me.”
“What did you do?”
Alexander rubbed his palms together.
“I had agreed to guarantee a loan for her.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Two million.”
Rachel stared at him.
“That’s not a loan. That’s a hostage situation.”
“She was starting a development company.”
“And I objected?”
“You said she’d been lying about the numbers.”
Rachel’s attention sharpened.
“Was she?”
“Yes.”
“When did you find out?”
“After you disappeared.”
A piece shifted.
Not enough to reveal the picture.
Enough to change it.
“Did police investigate her?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Her alibi held. The loan had already been canceled. There was no evidence she harmed you.”
“Who canceled it?”
“You did.”
Rachel frowned.
“I could?”
“You had authorization on that account.”
“And that’s why we fought?”
“Partly.”
“What was the other part?”
Alexander stared at the path.
“You told me you were taking Ethan and leaving for a while.”
Rachel’s chest tightened.
“Why?”
“You said you didn’t trust my judgment anymore.”
There it was.
Not a perfect marriage interrupted by tragedy.
A damaged one.
Somehow that made Alexander easier to believe.
“What did you say?”
“That you weren’t taking my son anywhere.”
Rachel looked at him.
His face had gone rigid.
“I said worse things.”
“Like?”
“That if you left, I’d fight you for custody.”
Ethan was returning with lemonade.
Rachel stood.
Alexander looked up.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize yet.”
“For what?”
“I don’t remember enough to know whether I forgive you.”
He absorbed that.
Ethan reached them.
“Why do you both look weird?”
Rachel took the lemonade he offered.
“Your dad was telling me he used to be an idiot.”
Ethan nodded.
“He still does that sometimes.”
Alexander stared at his son.
Rachel laughed.
The remains were exhumed eleven days later.
They belonged to a woman approximately Claire’s age.
They were not Claire.
Dental records in the original file had been falsified.
The revelation turned a family mystery into a criminal investigation.
The dead woman was eventually identified through DNA as Marisol Vega, a twenty-eight-year-old marina employee who had disappeared nine years earlier.
Rachel searched the name.
A face appeared.
She knew it.
Not from memory.
From the marina fragment.
Marisol had been there.
Rachel remembered her standing behind a counter, arguing with Victoria.
The memory came in pieces over the next two days.
Rachel had gone to the marina to meet Victoria.
Victoria had been desperate.
The canceled loan had exposed financial irregularities in her company. She had used investor funds improperly and forged documents connected to collateral she did not control.
Claire had discovered it.
Victoria wanted time.
Claire had refused.
But that still did not explain Marisol’s body.
Or Rachel’s disappearance.
The police asked Rachel not to contact Victoria.
Rachel agreed.
Then Victoria contacted her.
A handwritten note arrived through Rachel’s lawyer.
No threats.
No confession.
Just six words.
You don’t remember what you did.
Rachel read it three times.
Alexander wanted the note turned over immediately.
Rachel did.
But the sentence followed her.
You don’t remember what you did.
Memory had become dangerous in a new way.
Until then, Rachel had treated remembering as recovery.
Now she wondered whether Claire had done something terrible too.
The next fragment arrived because of a smell.
Diesel fuel.
She was walking past a marina during an interview with investigators when an engine started.
Suddenly she saw Marisol crying.
Not Victoria.
Marisol.
Rachel heard herself saying, “I can help you.”
May you like
Marisol shaking her head.
“You don’t understand her.”
