Chương 6
“So you paid a woman to investigate your wife.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like?”
“I was trying to stop you from blowing up a company over things you did not understand.”
Claire looked at Rachel.
Rachel had stopped taking notes.
“Did Celeste touch the latch on that tender?”
“No.”
The answer came too fast.
Claire heard it.
Grant heard himself hearing it.
She asked, “How do you know?”
Silence.
“Grant?”
“I have to go.”
“Did she touch that latch?”
“I said no.”
“How do you know?”
The call ended.
Claire lowered the phone.
Rachel waited.
“I should have recorded that.”
“No.”
Claire looked up.
“No?”
“You took the call with me sitting here. We have contemporaneous notes. Depending on state law and circumstances, recording can create its own problems. More importantly, stop thinking like every conversation has to become a trap.”
Claire put the phone down.
“He knew.”
“He claimed to know.”
“There’s a difference.”
“Yes.”
Claire gave Rachel a tired look.
“You enjoy this.”
“I enjoy precision.”
“That sounds worse.”
Rachel almost smiled.
Detective Keene interviewed Claire for nearly three hours.
The questions about the accident were harder than Claire expected.
Where exactly had she been standing?
Which hand held the rail?
Had she seen the latch before departure?
Who boarded first?
Who had access to the tender while it was docked?
What had Grant said that day?
What had Celeste said?
Claire remembered less than she wanted.
The dinner had been ordinary.
That offended her.
If somebody had planned for her to die that night, the universe should have marked it somehow.
Instead, Emma had spilled lemonade on Claire’s skirt.
Grant had texted that he was too busy to meet them on Block Island.
Claire had complained about the tender being cold.
Owen Pike had handed her a blanket.
A couple from Boston argued about whether their teenage son was vaping.
The last thing Claire remembered before the gate opened was bending toward Emma’s stuffed rabbit.
Not fear.
Not suspicion.
A toy rabbit with one torn ear.
“Who buckled Emma into her seat?” Keene asked.
“Owen.”
“Was your daughter still in the tender when you fell?”
“Yes.”
“Did Grant know she would be?”
Claire looked at her.
“He knew she was coming home with me.”
Keene wrote something down.
Claire understood the question.
“You’re asking whether he would have risked Emma too.”
“I’m establishing circumstances.”
“He loves her.”
Keene looked up.
“Those facts can coexist with dangerous behavior.”
Claire disliked hearing her own answer from the detective.
Afterward, Thomas was waiting in the hallway.
Claire almost walked past him.
He held out a paper cup.
“Coffee.”
“What kind?”
“Black.”
“I take milk.”
“I know.”
“Then why black?”
“They were out.”
Claire took it anyway.
They sat on a bench beneath a framed photograph of sailboats.
Thomas stared at the opposite wall.
“I lied to you.”
Claire set the coffee down.
“About what?”
“The latch report.”
Her body became still before her mind did.
“What about it?”
“The morning after the accident, operations sent me photographs. The latch plate had tool marks.”
Claire turned slowly toward him.
“You told investigators?”
“No.”
The word landed harder than shouting could have.
Thomas looked at his hands.
“I sent the photographs to company counsel. Counsel said there were several explanations. Emergency personnel had been on the vessel. Crew had tried to secure the gate afterward. We did not know when the marks were made.”
“You told me it was probably a bad latch.”
“Yes.”
“You let the investigation close.”
“I did not control the Coast Guard.”
“You controlled the photographs.”
Thomas’s face tightened.
“They had access to the vessel.”
“Did they have those photos?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you give them to Detective Keene now?”
“Yes.”
Claire stood.
“Don’t follow me.”
“Claire.”
She turned.
He stayed seated.
That helped.
“Why?” she asked.
Thomas rubbed one thumb against the other.
“Because Grant had approved the maintenance payment.”
Claire stared.
“You knew that then?”
“I knew his office had.”
“And you protected him.”
“I told myself I was protecting the company from speculation.”
“Was that true?”
Thomas looked at her.
“Partly.”
The answer was uglier because it was not noble enough to hate cleanly.
“And the other part?”
“He was my son.”
Claire looked down the hall.
People moved in and out of offices.
A woman argued softly on a phone about parking.
A uniformed officer carried a printer cartridge past them.
Ordinary life, offensively intact.
“You sat beside my hospital bed,” Claire said.
“I did.”
“You watched me learn how to stand.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“I did.”
“You knew somebody might have touched that gate.”
“I suspected.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was ashamed.”
“Not enough.”
“No.”
Claire picked up the coffee only so she would not leave it for someone else to throw away.
“I don’t want your trust.”
Thomas nodded.
“I understand.”
“No, I mean it. Fix it.”
“I can change the beneficiary structure again after counsel reviews the restrictions.”
“I don’t care how.”
“You should.”
“I don’t.”
“You will if Grant challenges it.”
“Then let him.”
Thomas stood slowly.
“Claire, this isn’t a gift you can hand back like a jacket.”
“That sounds like a problem you created.”
“It is.”
“Good. Solve one.”
She walked away.
That afternoon, a family court filing arrived electronically through Rachel.
Grant wanted temporary parenting time.
Not sole custody.
Not emergency removal.
Nothing so crude.
He asked for a structured schedule and requested that Emma not be “exposed to adult allegations concerning the boating incident, financial disputes, or marital conflict.”
Claire read the sentence twice.
“It sounds reasonable,” she said.
Rachel sat across from her.
“Parts of it are.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“He doesn’t ask for anything that makes him look insane.”
“Most lawyers advise clients not to look insane.”
Claire dropped the tablet onto the sofa.
“He saw Emma after Celeste scared her.”
“According to him, he saw the aftermath.”
May you like
“He knows what Celeste said.”
“He knows what you say Celeste said.”
