Chương 6
Mara asked Victoria to sit on the far side of the lounge until the conductor arrived.
Victoria did.
Richard stayed near the window.
Elena leaned back against the white travel pillow.
The position brought the slap back into her cheek.
She touched the skin.
Richard saw.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at him.
“For what?”
He did not answer immediately.
That, more than any perfect apology, unsettled her.
Finally he said, “I don’t know where to start.”
“Neither do I.”
The storm shook the glass.
Somewhere farther down the train a door slammed.
Elena closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, Richard had taken off his dark wool coat and folded it across his lap.
He used to do that in airplanes.
The memory arrived without permission: her father on a red-eye to London, asleep upright, coat folded perfectly over his knees while she and Victoria whispered insults at each other across the aisle.
Elena pressed her lips together.
Richard saw.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Elena.”
“You still fold your coat like a hotel employee.”
He looked down at it.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
It was quiet and rough.
“I forgot you hated that.”
“I didn’t hate it.”
“You made fun of it.”
“I was fifteen.”
“You made fun of everything.”
“That sounds right.”
Victoria was watching them from across the room.
Her face had gone still.
For a few seconds the twelve missing years became almost stranger than the secret itself.
Richard and Elena could still locate old versions of each other.
They simply had no idea what to do with the current ones.
The conductor arrived, took Mara’s report, photographed the reddening mark on Elena’s cheek with her consent, and spoke privately with Victoria.
Victoria admitted the slap but insisted she believed Elena was perpetrating a fraud against her family.
Elena did not respond.
The conductor said local police would be notified at Summit Junction.
Richard said, “Good.”
Victoria stared at him.
“You want me arrested?”
“I want the facts recorded.”
“For hitting someone?”
“For everything.”
Her face changed.
“So that’s it?”
Richard looked tired.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m done.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She stood.
The conductor asked her to remain seated.
Victoria ignored him for two steps, then stopped.
“You buried her,” she said to Richard.
Nobody moved.
“You signed the papers. You gave the eulogy. You stopped asking questions.”
Richard’s face hardened.
Victoria’s voice began to shake.
“I lied. Fine. I lied. But you wanted an answer so badly you took the first one they gave you.”
Elena whispered, “Victoria.”
“No. He gets to hear it too.”
Richard stood.
“I called hospitals for weeks.”
“For three days.”
“I hired investigators.”
“After the funeral.”
“I trusted you.”
Victoria laughed.
“There. That’s what you really can’t stand.”
Richard looked at her.
“You trusted me because I was the competent daughter. I handled the police. I handled the funeral home. I handled the calls. I handled the board when you stopped going to work. You let me.”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
“You knew she was alive.”
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“Yes!”
The word burst from Victoria so loudly that Mara flinched.
Victoria immediately lowered her voice.
“Yes.”
She looked at Elena.
“I knew.”
Elena’s eyes filled, but she did not cry.
Victoria seemed almost to prefer anger.
“I went to the hospital because I saw the ambulance leave. I found out where they took you. When I saw you alive, I thought everything was over. The money, the crash, all of it. You were going to tell Dad I chased you. Celia was dead. Mom’s money was gone.”
“So you erased me.”
“No.”
“You told everyone I was dead.”
“I was already in it.”
“That is not a sentence.”
“It is if you’ve ever been trapped in something.”
Elena stared at her.
“I was trapped in a motel room with cracked ribs because of you.”
Victoria’s face went white.
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
The words were almost a whisper.
Victoria looked down.
For once, she obeyed.
The train stopped in the mountains at 1:17 in the morning.
There was no station outside, only darkness, snow, and the dim red lamps of maintenance equipment farther up the track.
The silence after hours of motion felt unnatural.
Kemp made Elena lie down.
Richard left the lounge because she asked for ten minutes alone.
Victoria was moved to an empty dining compartment under the conductor’s supervision.
Mara stayed.
She dimmed two lamps, brought Elena water, and sat across from her without speaking.
After a while Elena said, “You probably didn’t expect this shift.”
Mara looked out at the storm.
“I had a couple celebrating their divorce last month. They got drunk and remarried in Spokane.”
Elena smiled weakly.
“That’s worse.”
“I haven’t decided.”
They sat quietly.
Elena turned her phone over in her hands.
The case had a crack across one corner.
Mara nodded toward it.
“Your lawyer know you’re on this train?”
“She knows my route.”
“Does she know they’re here?”
“No.”
“Maybe tell her.”
Elena hesitated.
Then opened her messages.
Naomi Park answered on the second ring.
“Elena?”
“I’m okay.”
A pause.
“What happened?”
Elena looked toward the frosted glass door.
“I found my family.”
Another pause.
Naomi knew enough not to ask whether Elena meant emotionally.
“Where are you?”
“Stopped somewhere in the mountains.”
“Are you safe?”
Elena considered the question.
“Mara’s here.”
Mara lifted two fingers.
Naomi said, “Who is Mara?”
“Train attendant.”
“Good. Is Victoria with you?”
“Not in the room.”
“Richard?”
“Next car.”
Naomi exhaled slowly.
“All right. Tell me only what I need right now.”
Elena did.
The slap. Richard’s recognition. Victoria admitting she had found Elena after the crash. The false identification.
Naomi listened without interruption.
May you like
When Elena finished, she said, “Do not hand Victoria your phone. Do not delete anything. Do not agree to go anywhere private with either of them. When you reach a staffed station, cooperate with medical evaluation first. I’ll deal with the rest.”
Richard, standing outside the frosted door, heard only the last sentence.
