Chương 4
“I don’t know.”
Moreno did not rescue her from the answer.
Sarah hated her for that for perhaps three seconds.
Then she was grateful.
“I had met Victoria earlier that night,” Sarah said.
“Why?”
“She wanted me to leave the state.”
The officer’s pen stopped.
“Why?”
“Because I was pregnant with her brother’s child.”
Outside the room, someone dropped a glass.
The sound was small and clean and absurdly similar to the tiara breaking.
Sarah stared at the table.
“There were letters after Daniel died. Some before the crash. Some after. Threats that weren’t exactly threats. Offers. Instructions not to contact the family. One said if I made a paternity claim, they’d ruin me. Another said my employment history would become relevant. I worked for a Hale hotel then.”
“Do you still have them?”
“Yes.”
Moreno resumed writing.
“Where?”
“In a safe-deposit box.”
Sarah had not looked at them in almost four years.
She knew the exact order anyway.
Cream envelope.
White envelope.
Courier packet.
No return address.
Hale Legal letterhead.
One sentence underlined twice in blue ink: There are consequences to attaching yourself to a family that does not recognize you.
She had believed Richard wrote it.
Or approved it.
Perhaps that was worse.
When she came out, Richard was standing near a tall window at the end of the corridor. The ballroom’s warm gold light did not reach there. He held his phone but was not looking at it.
Victoria had been taken to another room.
Callahan had given the officers security access.
Guests were leaving in clusters.
Some avoided Sarah’s eyes. Some stared openly. A woman Sarah vaguely knew from the foundation board squeezed Sarah’s arm as she passed and said, “I’m sorry,” though Sarah did not know which part she meant.
Richard approached.
“Is Chloe all right?”
“No.”
He absorbed that.
“Physically?”
“Her heel hurts.”
He almost smiled, then seemed to understand that smiling might be dangerous.
“Sarah.”
She waited.
“I didn’t know you were pregnant.”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“You don’t.”
“You’re going to say Victoria hid it.”
“I’m going to say I sent you a letter.”
Sarah stared at him.
Richard looked toward the ballroom.
“After Daniel died. My attorney drafted it. I approved it.”
Her whole body became still.
“What letter?”
“It said we believed it would be best if there were no further contact between you and the family while the estate was settled.”
Sarah tasted metal.
“You offered me money.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
She laughed.
Richard looked ashamed.
Good, she thought.
Then hated herself for the satisfaction.
“I never cashed anything.”
“I know.”
“You sent that when?”
“Two weeks after the funeral.”
“I was twenty-four.”
“I know.”
“I had just buried the father of my child.”
“I didn’t know about the child.”
“You knew about me.”
“Yes.”
“And you thought fifty thousand dollars would make me disappear.”
Richard did not defend himself.
That made it harder to remain angry in the clean, uncomplicated way Sarah wanted.
She stepped closer.
“Did you send other letters?”
“No.”
“Did you have someone tell me you would fight paternity?”
“No.”
“Did you threaten my job?”
“No.”
“Did you have me followed?”
His answer took half a second too long.
Sarah saw it.
“I asked security to make sure you weren’t speaking to reporters.”
She stared at him.
“You had me followed.”
“For three days.”
“Three days.”
“I ended it.”
“You don’t get credit for ending something you never had the right to begin.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Richard looked at her.
“Fair.”
Sarah folded her arms.
“Did Victoria know?”
“Yes.”
“About the surveillance?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know who did it?”
“She was overseeing family security at the time because I was—”
He stopped.
“Because you were what?”
“Barely functioning.”
It was the first sentence he had said that sounded less like Richard Hale and more like an old man whose son had died.
Sarah looked away.
For several seconds they stood without speaking.
A hotel employee pushed a cart of untouched champagne flutes past them. The glasses rattled softly over a seam in the carpet. At the far end of the corridor, Chloe came out of the restroom holding her silver shoes in one hand and the locket in the other.
Richard saw her and forgot Sarah for one unguarded second.
His face changed.
Not into joy.
Grief.
It was so immediate Sarah almost stepped between them.
Then Chloe walked over and held up her bare foot.
“My shoe is mean.”
Richard nodded solemnly.
“I’ve owned several like that.”
“You wear girl shoes?”
“No. Mine are mean in different ways.”
Chloe studied him.
Then, unexpectedly, she smiled.
Sarah felt something inside her twist.
She did not want Richard to be charming.
She wanted him easier to hate.
Officer Moreno returned with her partner.
“Ms. Bennett, we’ll need those old letters if you’re willing to provide them.”
“I am.”
Richard said, “I’ll have our legal department—”
Sarah turned on him.
“No.”
He stopped.
“The police get the originals through me,” she said. “Not your lawyers. Not your security. Not your company.”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
For a moment the man she remembered appeared: the executive who expected a request to become an instruction the instant he spoke it.
Then he nodded.
“All right.”
Sarah did not thank him.
The officer asked whether Sarah wanted to make a complaint concerning the ballroom incident.
Victoria’s voice suddenly came from the doorway behind them.
“Think very carefully.”
Everyone turned.
A second officer stood beside her.
Victoria’s posture remained elegant, but her face had changed. The color beneath her makeup was uneven. One hand gripped the opposite wrist.
Sarah looked at Chloe.
Then at Victoria.
For seven years Sarah had treated safety as the absence of confrontation. She had moved apartments, changed jobs, removed photographs from the internet, ignored invitations, taught Chloe never to tell strangers her father’s name because “some families are complicated.”
It had felt responsible.
May you like
Sometimes it had been.
Sometimes fear wore responsible clothing.
