Chương 5
“Is the baby coming?”
“Maybe.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
Another pause, longer.
“Why are you saying yes like it’s a good thing?”
Maya looked at the hospital curtain.
“Because the available company is complicated.”
Jessa was silent for two seconds.
Then, “The suitcase video is on TikTok.”
“Of course it is.”
“Did an old lady really slap that man?”
“His mother.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t sound impressed.”
“I’m not impressed.”
“You’re impressed.”
“A little.”
Maya laughed despite herself.
The laugh turned into a breath when her abdomen tightened again.
Jessa heard it.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Maya.”
“I’m three hours away from home.”
“I know where the hospital is. Your location is still shared with me.”
Maya stared at her phone.
Modern friendship was invasive in useful ways.
“Fine.”
“I’m bringing your charger.”
“Bring the blue bag from my bedroom.”
“The baby bag?”
“Yes.”
A beat.
“So the baby might actually be coming.”
“I said maybe.”
“I’m leaving now.”
The call ended.
Maya rested the phone on her chest.
For almost ten minutes, nobody entered.
She listened to the soft machinery, shoes passing in the hallway, a man somewhere complaining that the vending machine had taken his dollar.
Then Daniel came in without knocking.
Maya opened one eye.
“Do rich people not believe in doors?”
He stopped.
“I can leave.”
“That would technically answer the question.”
He looked exhausted now. His tie was gone. His white shirt was open at the collar, and a faint red mark still showed on his cheek.
Maya had expected satisfaction at that.
She felt none.
Daniel held his phone.
“I need to tell you something before you see it online.”
“That sentence has never preceded anything good.”
“The video has passed half a million views.”
Maya closed her eye again.
“Fantastic.”
“Your name is public now.”
“Also fantastic.”
“There are people claiming you planned this.”
She looked at him.
“Based on?”
“The fact that Claire’s obituary says she had one daughter. People found photographs of you with her.”
“How does that prove a plan?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“Because a gossip account posted that you’re making a claim against the Whitmore family trust.”
Maya sat up.
“I’m doing what?”
“You aren’t. As far as I know.”
“As far as you know?”
“I’m trying to be precise.”
“No, you’re trying not to believe me by accident.”
Daniel pulled a visitor chair toward the bed but did not sit until she stopped glaring at it.
“Someone is feeding information to people,” he said. “Bad information.”
“Your people?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your first instinct tonight was that I was stealing from you.”
“Yes.”
“Your second was to treat my mother’s letter like a forged check.”
“Yes.”
“Why would I assume your third instinct is different?”
Daniel looked down at his hands.
They were well-kept hands, but the knuckles of his right one had an old scar.
“I told our communications consultant not to comment.”
“That was not my question.”
“No.”
He looked up.
“You shouldn’t assume anything about me.”
It was an unexpectedly decent answer.
Maya leaned back.
“Did you know about me?”
“No.”
“Did you know your sister had a child?”
Daniel hesitated.
“I knew she’d had a daughter.”
Maya stared.
He continued quickly.
“I didn’t know your name. I didn’t know if you were biologically hers or adopted or—”
“She gave birth to me.”
“I know that now.”
“How could you know she had a daughter and still kick my suitcase when I said her name?”
“Because Claire had spent thirty years refusing contact with us. Then she died. Six weeks later you appeared carrying things from our house.”
“Your house?”
“The brooch was my mother’s.”
“She gave it to Claire.”
“I know.”
“Then it was Claire’s.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“You’re right.”
Maya blinked.
He noticed.
“Don’t look so surprised.”
“I’m pregnant and tired. Let me have small pleasures.”
He almost smiled again.
Then it vanished.
“When I was eleven, Claire left. My father said she had chosen another life and didn’t want us in it.”
“And you believed him.”
“I was eleven.”
“Eventually you weren’t.”
Daniel’s face closed.
Maya saw she had found the sore place.
Good.
Then she remembered Claire’s rule about punishing people because she could.
Less good.
“I tried finding her when I was twenty-six,” Daniel said.
Maya had not expected that.
“What happened?”
“She answered one email.”
“What did she say?”
“That she was alive and safe, and that I should leave her alone.”
Maya frowned.
“That sounds like her.”
“I sent two more anyway.”
“Also sounds like you.”
He accepted that.
“She blocked the account.”
“Did you tell Evelyn?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because my father was still alive.”
Maya waited.
Daniel looked toward the dark hospital window.
“My father had a way of making curiosity feel like betrayal.”
That sentence told Maya more than any speech could have.
She studied him.
“What did you think I was stealing?”
Daniel looked back.
“Nothing specific.”
“You literally accused me of stealing.”
“You were in the family corridor with an old Whitmore brooch visible through the open top of your bag.”
“My suitcase wasn’t open until you kicked it.”
“The small pocket was.”
Maya remembered.
She had unfastened the front pocket at check-in to get Claire’s handwritten invitation note.
The tissue around the brooch had shifted.
“Victor recognized the brooch,” Daniel said. “He asked how you got it. You refused to answer him.”
“I told him I would answer Evelyn.”
“You pushed past the rope.”
“Nora waved me through.”
“There was confusion.”
“There was arrogance.”
“Yes.”
Maya blinked again.
Daniel exhaled.
“I was angry before I met you.”
“About Claire dying?”
“About Claire dying without letting us come.”
Maya looked away.
There it was.
Not innocence.
Not justification.
A cause.
May you like
Daniel continued.
“We were notified by an attorney after the funeral. My mother had been sending birthday cards to an address she wasn’t sure Claire still used. Most came back. One didn’t. She convinced herself that meant Claire had read it.”
