Chương 6
“Yes.”
It was difficult admitting this in daylight.
Richard’s real cruelty had made Victoria’s invented cruelty believable.
That fact would become important.
At the time, it simply made Sarah angry enough to shake.
The crash file came back from county archives three days later.
It had not been solved.
The report described Sarah’s blue Honda being struck on the driver’s side by a dark SUV on a two-lane county road at 10:47 p.m. The Honda went through a wooden barrier and down an embankment. A passing delivery driver saw taillights leaving the scene and called 911.
Sarah had been trapped for forty-two minutes.
She had been thirty-one weeks pregnant.
Chloe had been delivered by emergency cesarean section before dawn.
Three pounds, eleven ounces.
A collapsed lung.
Twelve days in intensive care.
Sarah had told almost no one.
Her mother had answered unknown calls by saying, “The baby is gone,” because Sarah had been terrified someone was asking on Victoria’s behalf.
The sentence had not been entirely false. For several hours after the crash, Sarah had not known whether Chloe would live.
A private investigator later confirmed that someone had contacted the hospital pretending to be a family representative.
Hospital privacy staff refused to release information.
The caller never tried again.
Moreno placed the report on Sarah’s kitchen table.
“Paint transfer was collected from your car.”
Sarah stared at her.
“You still have it?”
“I don’t know. Evidence retention after an unsolved property-and-injury crash from seven years ago is something I’m checking. Don’t get ahead of me.”
Sarah nodded.
Moreno pointed to a line.
“Witness said the SUV had one damaged rear light after the collision.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“You were unconscious when the witness arrived.”
“What do you need from me?”
“Nothing today.”
“I hate that answer.”
“Most people do.”
“Can you question Victoria?”
“We can do a lot of things. Whether people answer is a different issue.”
Sarah leaned back.
“So she can just refuse.”
“Yes.”
“That seems useful.”
“To her? Sometimes.”
Moreno closed the file.
“Sarah, if you want certainty by Friday, I’m going to disappoint you.”
“I’ve been disappointed since 2019.”
“I can tell.”
The detective’s voice was dry rather than sympathetic.
Sarah liked her for it.
Richard called that afternoon.
Sarah almost did not answer.
Then she remembered Chloe’s question.
Are you my grandpa?
She picked up.
“Yes?”
“May I see you?”
“No.”
A pause.
“All right.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
“That wasn’t the whole answer.”
“I assumed you would continue if there was more.”
She hated that he had learned restraint so quickly.
“There is more. I’ll meet you somewhere public.”
“Anywhere.”
“No hotel.”
“Fair.”
“No lawyer.”
Another pause.
“Sarah—”
“No lawyer.”
“I need one eventually.”
“Eventually isn’t Thursday at four.”
Richard exhaled.
“Where?”
They met at a diner forty minutes from downtown where nobody cared who Richard Hale was until he sat down in a tuxedo-level posture beneath a laminated photograph of pancakes.
Sarah almost enjoyed it.
He ordered coffee.
The waitress called him honey.
He looked startled.
Sarah decided not to rescue him.
For several minutes they discussed nothing important.
The coffee.
Parking.
The fact that the diner’s air-conditioning was aggressive.
Then Richard removed his signet ring and put it on the table.
Sarah’s eyes went to it.
“My mother wore the locket almost every day,” he said.
Sarah said nothing.
“When she died, her will instructed me to give it to Daniel. She said it was to pass to his first daughter if he had one.”
“He told me it was his grandmother’s.”
“He did not tell you the rest?”
“No.”
Richard looked at the ring.
“He probably knew you’d refuse it.”
“He knew me.”
“He loved you.”
Sarah’s jaw tightened.
“Don’t.”
Richard looked up.
“You don’t get to tell me what Daniel felt.”
“You’re right.”
The immediate surrender irritated her more than an argument might have.
“Why did you hate me?”
Richard rubbed his thumb over the pale mark where the ring had been.
“I didn’t.”
“You sent me fifty thousand dollars to disappear.”
“I thought my son was making decisions because he wanted to hurt me.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
He looked toward the waitress refilling coffee at another table.
“Daniel wanted out of the company. He had wanted out for years. When he met you, he became willing to say it aloud. I blamed you because blaming him meant admitting I had built a life he didn’t want.”
Sarah looked down.
That sounded like Daniel.
“He was still going to leave,” she said.
“I know.”
“You told him he’d come back when he got bored playing ordinary.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Daniel had repeated that sentence after the worst fight with his father.
Sarah had never known if it was exact.
Apparently it had been.
“I said worse.”
“Probably.”
“I believed money made choices reversible.”
Sarah looked at him.
“That sounds like something you practiced saying.”
“It probably does.”
He gave a tired, humorless smile.
“I’ve had seven years to discover that grief doesn’t care about liquidity.”
Sarah almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Richard’s face changed.
“Victoria told me you had taken money.”
“What?”
“After Daniel died. She said you accepted a private payment in exchange for ending contact.”
Sarah sat very still.
“How much?”
“A hundred thousand.”
“I never received it.”
“I know that now.”
“How?”
“Because yesterday I asked our former family accountant to find the transaction.”
“And?”
“There was a withdrawal from a discretionary family account.”
Sarah felt cold.
“To me?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“A consulting company that dissolved six months later.”
“Victoria’s?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Sarah pushed her coffee away.
“You said no lawyers.”
“I didn’t bring one.”
“You brought an investigation.”
“I began one.”
“Why?”
Richard stared at her.
“Because my daughter said a child wasn’t supposed to survive.”
The waitress arrived with a coffee pot.
Neither of them spoke.
She topped up Richard’s cup.
“You folks need pie?”
Sarah said, “No.”
Richard said, “Yes.”
Sarah looked at him.
May you like
He shrugged faintly.
“I haven’t eaten.”
