Chương 5
“Yes,” Sarah told Officer Moreno. “I want to make a complaint.”
Victoria stared at her.
Sarah continued.
“And I want the old crash report reopened if there is any legal basis to look at it again.”
Richard closed his eyes briefly.
Victoria’s mouth hardened.
Chloe touched Sarah’s hand.
“Can we go home now?”
“Yes.”
That answer, at least, was easy.
The video reached the internet before Sarah reached her driveway.
She learned because her phone began vibrating in the cup holder while Chloe slept against the passenger door with Sarah’s rolled-up shawl beneath her cheek.
Sarah ignored the first four calls.
Then twelve.
Then twenty-three.
At a red light she glanced at the screen and saw a message from her older sister in Oregon.
CALL ME BEFORE YOU LOOK ONLINE.
Sarah looked online.
The first clip was eleven seconds.
Victoria jerking away the tiara.
The crack against the floor.
Chloe crying.
Victoria saying, You were never supposed to know you’re a Hale.
The clip ended there.
No locket.
No Richard.
No context.
It had already been viewed more than eighty thousand times.
By the time Sarah got Chloe into bed, the number had tripled.
She turned off the phone and placed it face down on the kitchen counter.
Then she stood in the dark and drank a glass of water.
The refrigerator hummed.
A neighbor’s television laughed through the wall.
Someone upstairs dragged a chair across the floor.
For seven years Sarah had imagined what would happen if the Hales found Chloe.
She had imagined attorneys.
Private investigators.
Custody threats.
Money.
She had never imagined strangers making reaction videos about her daughter before midnight.
Chloe appeared in the hallway in an oversized yellow T-shirt.
“You forgot bunny.”
Sarah looked at the stuffed rabbit on the couch.
“Right.”
She brought it to her.
Chloe did not go back to bed.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Daniel my dad?”
Sarah sat on the floor.
Chloe sat opposite her, knees under the shirt.
“Yes.”
“Was he nice?”
Sarah’s throat tightened.
“Sometimes.”
Chloe frowned.
“That means sometimes not.”
“He left wet towels on the bed.”
“Oh.”
“He sang badly on purpose.”
“Why?”
“He thought it was funny.”
“Was it?”
“Not after the fiftieth time.”
Chloe thought about that.
“Did he know me?”
Sarah looked down at her hands.
“He knew you were coming.”
“Did he want me?”
“Yes.”
The word came without hesitation.
Chloe’s face loosened a little.
Sarah continued before courage left.
“He wanted you very much.”
“How do you know?”
Sarah looked toward the bedroom closet.
In a storage box behind winter blankets was a blue folder she had not opened since moving into the apartment.
She had kept it through four homes.
Daniel’s handwriting.
Two photographs.
A hospital appointment card.
A receipt for terrible takeout.
And one page from a legal pad where he had written possible baby names and crossed out nearly all of them.
Chloe had been his suggestion.
Sarah had pretended to hate it.
Three days later she had written Chloe Bennett in the margin of her planner.
“Because he was annoying about names,” Sarah said.
Chloe smiled.
“Did he pick mine?”
“Unfortunately.”
That produced a small laugh.
Sarah had forgotten how much relief could hurt.
The next morning, reporters were outside the apartment building.
Not many.
Three cameras.
Two people with phones.
One local station van.
Sarah saw them through the blinds and swore quietly.
Chloe, eating cereal, looked up.
“That’s a bad word.”
“It is.”
“You said I can’t say it.”
“You cannot.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No.”
Sarah poured coffee she did not want.
Her phone was back on because the detective assigned to the old crash needed to reach her.
There were 147 unread messages.
Richard had sent two.
The first: I am sorry.
The second: I will not contact Chloe without your permission.
Sarah stared at that longer than she intended.
Then she received a third.
There are people outside your building. I can send security if you want. I will not send anyone unless you say yes.
Better.
She typed no.
Then deleted it.
She looked at the reporters.
Chloe was trying to fit six cereal loops on the handle of her spoon.
Sarah typed: One unmarked car. One person. Building entrance only. No one comes upstairs.
Richard replied: Done.
No argument.
At nine thirty, Detective Lena Moreno arrived out of uniform with a cardboard carrier holding two coffees.
“I didn’t know how you take it.”
“Badly.”
Moreno handed her one.
It had too much cream.
Sarah drank it anyway.
They went to the bank together.
The safe-deposit box contained fourteen letters.
Sarah had remembered nine.
Seeing all fourteen made her feel faint.
She sat at a small private-room table while Moreno photographed the envelopes before touching them.
The first was Richard’s.
Sarah recognized it immediately.
Heavy cream stationery.
Formal language.
A check she had returned.
The next six appeared to come from Hale legal counsel.
Two carried signatures.
Three included details about Sarah’s work schedule that made her skin crawl.
One referred to a medical appointment.
Moreno looked up.
“Who knew about this appointment?”
“Daniel’s doctor. Me. My obstetrician. Maybe Daniel’s assistant because he was arranging travel.”
“Family?”
“No.”
“Victoria?”
Sarah hesitated.
“Daniel told her I was pregnant.”
“You’re sure?”
“She came to my apartment.”
“When?”
Sarah looked at the letter.
“Four days before the crash.”
Moreno sat back.
“What did she say?”
Sarah remembered Victoria standing in a cheap apartment kitchen wearing a gray coat worth more than Sarah’s car.
She remembered being embarrassed by an overflowing recycling bin.
Human memory was obscene that way. It preserved garbage when terror might have been more useful.
“She said Daniel was dead and I needed to stop behaving like his plans mattered.”
“What plans?”
“Marriage. Leaving the company. The baby.”
“Did she threaten you?”
“She said if I claimed the child was Daniel’s, Richard would destroy me.”
“Did she say Richard told her that?”
“Yes.”
Moreno tapped the letter.
May you like
“And you believed her.”
Sarah looked at the first envelope.
