Chương 2
Richard had reached arithmetic.
He looked at Victoria’s wrist, where Mara’s fingers had left pale marks.
“You knew her.”
“I recognized someone pretending to be her.”
“You hit her before she was conscious.”
“She’s been stalking me.”
Elena looked up.
Victoria saw it.
“Oh, don’t,” she said. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Elena’s mouth trembled, but she did not answer.
The frosted glass door opened.
Dr. Samuel Kemp, the physician contracted for the private train, came in carrying a black medical case. He was sixty, broad through the middle, and irritated by the fact that the train’s radio had failed twice while Mara tried to reach him.
“What happened?”
Mara stood. “Passenger collapsed in the corridor. Regained consciousness after being struck by another passenger.”
Kemp stopped.
“Struck?”
Victoria folded her arms.
Mara pointed at her.
Kemp’s eyebrows rose.
“All right,” he said. “This is already more interesting than the dinner car.”
Nobody laughed.
He crouched beside Elena.
Richard moved toward them.
Kemp held up one hand. “Give me space.”
For the second time in less than a minute, Richard Vale obeyed a stranger.
Victoria walked to the window.
The train leaned into another curve. Snow slid in sheets across the glass.
Kemp checked Elena’s eyes, asked her the date, had her follow his finger, examined the swelling on her head. She answered correctly until he asked how she had fallen.
“I don’t know.”
Mara said, “I found her beside the drinks cart outside the lounge. The train jolted a few minutes before.”
“I might have caught the door,” Elena said.
Kemp nodded. “Possible concussion. We need to get you off at the next staffed stop if we can. Weather may complicate that.”
Richard said, “I can arrange a helicopter.”
Kemp looked toward the windows.
“No, you can’t.”
Under different circumstances Richard might have resented the tone. Instead he almost smiled. It lasted less than a second.
Kemp asked Elena if she had any medical conditions.
“No.”
“Medications?”
“Nothing regular.”
“Allergies?”
“Penicillin.”
Richard shut his eyes.
Victoria saw him do it.
When Elena was seven, she had developed hives after an antibiotic. Richard had spent a night beside her hospital bed pretending not to panic while Elena asked if she could have orange Jell-O.
Victoria noticed the recognition and rubbed her forehead.
“She could know that,” she said.
Richard opened his eyes.
“How?”
“It’s not classified information.”
“Who would know?”
“Anyone who researched us.”
Elena gave a tired little sound.
Everybody looked at her.
It might have been a laugh.
“My penicillin allergy,” she said, “was not in People magazine.”
Richard stared at her.
She met his eyes for the first time without immediately looking away.
He was older than she had prepared herself for.
That was what hurt.
Not the silver hair. Not the lines beside his mouth. It was the way he stood with one shoulder slightly lower than the other, as if years had pressed down on one side of him more heavily.
She had watched public interviews. She had seen photographs. She knew his face had changed.
Seeing age in three dimensions was different.
Twelve years existed in the room between them.
Richard pulled a chair closer but did not sit.
“What happened to you?”
Victoria turned.
“Dad.”
He ignored her.
“Elena, what happened?”
Elena looked at Mara.
Mara said, “You do not have to answer anything right now.”
“Thank you.”
Richard flinched as though the gratitude had been directed against him.
Elena noticed.
“I was going to tell you,” she said.
“When?”
“In Denver.”
Richard frowned.
“You knew I’d be there?”
“No.”
That answer seemed to confuse everyone.
Elena lifted her phone.
“I’m meeting an attorney there.”
Victoria’s face tightened.
“What attorney?”
Elena looked at her.
Then down at the phone.
Richard followed that exchange.
“What attorney?”
Elena hesitated.
“Naomi Park.”
Victoria’s shoulders went rigid.
It was small enough that Richard might have missed it if he had still been looking only at Elena.
He wasn’t.
“Who is Naomi Park?” he asked.
Victoria said, “I don’t know.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Richard saw that too.
He crossed the lounge in three steps and stopped beside Victoria.
“You’re lying.”
She stared at him.
“Do not do this.”
“Do what?”
“Decide in sixty seconds that a stranger is your dead child because you want her to be.”
“She is not a stranger to you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You hit her and called her by name.”
“She contacted me.”
Elena opened her eyes.
Mara said quietly, “Victoria.”
But it was too late.
Richard’s head turned.
Elena stared at her sister.
“You told him you didn’t know me.”
Victoria’s lips pressed together.
The train lights flickered.
For a moment the only sound was wind and the deep rhythmic impact of the wheels.
Richard said, “Show me your phone.”
Victoria blinked.
“What?”
“If she contacted you, show me.”
“You’re not entitled to my phone.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You demanded it.”
“Then refuse.”
“I am refusing.”
Richard nodded slowly.
“Fine.”
His calm frightened Victoria more than anger would have.
She reached for the drinks cart, found the edge, and held it.
Kemp finished checking Elena’s blood pressure.
“You need to stay seated,” he said. “Preferably lying back. No more family confrontations until we know you’re neurologically stable.”
“That may be difficult,” Elena said.
Kemp glanced at Richard and Victoria.
“Yes,” he said. “I gathered that.”
Mara almost smiled.
Elena did.
It surprised her.
The tiny laugh hurt her head, so she pressed two fingers to her temple.
Kemp told Mara to bring ice wrapped in cloth.
When Mara returned, Richard had finally sat down across from Elena. Victoria stood near the windows with her arms folded tightly around herself.
Nobody was speaking.
Mara handed Elena the ice pack.
“Thank you.”
Elena adjusted it against her temple.
Richard watched the gesture.
“You still do that with your left hand.”
Elena stopped.
“What?”
“Hold ice. You hated getting your right hand cold.”
May you like
Victoria shut her eyes.
Richard went on, almost to himself.
