Chương 5
“You were taken away in an ambulance.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Richard paced once across the marble floor.
“She told me there were witnesses who saw me driving.”
Victoria said, “There were reports.”
“Reports you invented?”
“I was trying to keep her calm.”
Richard stopped.
“No. You were trying to keep her gone.”
Victoria’s voice cracked.
“You don’t understand what was happening.”
“Then help me.”
She hugged herself harder.
For a moment she looked younger, not thirty-six but twenty-four again, standing somewhere in rain and broken glass with a decision in front of her.
“I thought she would come back,” Victoria said.
Elena stared.
“What?”
“I thought you’d stay away a week. Maybe two.”
“You held a funeral.”
“That happened too fast.”
“You identified Celia.”
“I panicked.”
“You came to my hospital room and told me Dad wanted me gone.”
“I panicked.”
“Twelve years, Victoria.”
“I know how long it’s been.”
“No, you know the number.”
Victoria’s eyes flashed.
“What do you want me to say?”
Elena’s voice became quiet.
“The truth would be new.”
Victoria looked as if she had been slapped.
Richard walked toward her.
“Why did you follow them that night?”
Victoria shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters more than anything.”
“No.”
Richard stopped inches from her.
“Why?”
She looked past him at Elena.
Elena knew before she answered.
Not the whole answer.
Just the shape of it.
“The foundation account,” Elena said.
Richard turned.
Victoria’s shoulders sank.
Elena continued, “The argument I heard that night. The money.”
Richard frowned.
“That was resolved.”
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“No. You decided it was a bookkeeping error.”
“It was presented to me as one.”
“Because I fixed it.”
Elena’s eyes narrowed.
Richard asked, “What money?”
Victoria walked away from him.
At the other end of the lounge she placed both palms on the drinks cart. The bottles trembled against the metal rail.
“Mom’s care,” she said.
Richard did not move.
Their mother had died fourteen years earlier after a long neurological illness that had left her unable to manage her own finances for almost a year.
Victoria stared at the bottles.
“Her private account.”
Richard’s voice became very cold.
“What about it?”
Victoria swallowed.
“I borrowed from it.”
“How much?”
“It wasn’t supposed to stay gone.”
“How much?”
“Four hundred and eighty thousand.”
Nobody spoke.
Richard blinked once.
“At twenty-four?”
“I was covering losses.”
“What losses?”
Victoria looked at him.
“Investments.”
He laughed.
It sounded ugly.
“Investments.”
“I thought I could replace it.”
Elena said, “She used Mom’s authorization token.”
Richard looked at her.
“How did you know?”
“I found copies in the office.”
Victoria’s head turned sharply.
“You were going through my desk.”
“You left the folder open.”
“That is not what you told me.”
“I didn’t have the chance. You followed me.”
Richard lifted a hand.
“Enough. Victoria, did Elena discover the transfers?”
“Yes.”
“Did you follow her because of that?”
Victoria’s mouth opened and closed.
“Yes.”
Richard stepped back.
The train lurched.
A glass slid along the drinks cart and struck the brass edge.
No one reached for it.
Victoria said, “I wanted to talk.”
Elena’s laugh was exhausted.
“You called me eleven times and chased us down a mountain road.”
“I needed you to listen.”
“You needed me not to tell him.”
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
“I know.”
“No. You know the word.”
Victoria’s face crumpled for a second.
She looked away.
Richard had spent years imagining what he would say if given one more minute with Elena. He had never imagined Victoria standing beside that miracle.
His grief had always contained one villain: chance.
A wet road.
A bad curve.
A young driver.
An accident.
Chance was easy to hate because it could not answer back.
Victoria could.
He looked at her and felt nothing simple.
That frightened him almost as much as everything else.
Kemp broke the silence.
“We need to return to the medical problem.”
Nobody responded.
He raised his voice.
“She lost consciousness. Whatever happened twelve years ago will still have happened after I finish checking her.”
Elena almost smiled again.
Kemp pointed at her.
“And you need to stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Acting like being funny means you’re okay.”
“I wasn’t being funny.”
“You were trying.”
Mara looked toward the frosted door as her radio crackled.
A voice came through in fragments. Avalanche warning. Track obstruction. Reduced speed.
She answered, listened, then turned to Kemp.
“We’re being held before Summit Junction. Maintenance found debris on the line. Could be ninety minutes before we reach the next stop.”
Kemp nodded.
“Then she stays here, lights low, minimal stimulation.”
Richard said, “I’ll leave.”
Elena looked at him quickly.
He saw it.
“Unless you want me to stay.”
She looked down.
“I don’t know.”
It was the first answer that felt completely honest.
Richard nodded.
“Okay.”
Victoria moved toward the door.
Mara stepped into her path.
“Not yet.”
Victoria’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m going to my compartment.”
“I need a statement about the assault.”
“You’re a train attendant.”
“Yes.”
“Not law enforcement.”
“No. But the railroad has a safety protocol, and I witnessed you hit a passenger who was unconscious.”
Victoria looked at Richard, expecting something.
He gave her nothing.
“You’ll report me?”
Mara’s expression remained professional.
“Yes.”
“For a slap?”
“For striking an unconscious passenger.”
Victoria laughed softly.
“Of course.”
She pulled a tissue from her coat pocket and wiped under one eye.
The gesture was controlled until her fingers began shaking.
Elena watched.
For a moment she hated herself for noticing the shake.
Victoria had been the person she feared most in the world for twelve years. In Elena’s imagination, Victoria had remained frozen at twenty-four: blonde hair perfect, voice calm, one hand holding the motel-room door open while she explained why Elena could never come home.
Real Victoria had lines around her eyes.
She had a small pale burn mark on one thumb.
She looked tired.
May you like
That did not make her safer.
It only made her human, which was more complicated.
