Chương 9
A tiny, miserable laugh escaped her.
“That was the practical reason.”
“And the other?”
Elena looked at him.
“I was tired of letting Victoria decide who existed.”
At Summit Junction, police officers boarded shortly before four in the morning.
The station was little more than a platform, maintenance office, and waiting room buried in snow. The storm had delayed every road vehicle in the county, so the officers had arrived in a municipal plow truck.
Elena was taken first to a small regional hospital.
Richard wanted to ride with her.
She said no.
He nodded.
Victoria was interviewed separately.
Mara gave her statement, then spent fifteen minutes in a fluorescent employee room drinking coffee that tasted faintly of cardboard.
When Richard came to thank her, she was standing over a vending machine trying to make it accept a five-dollar bill.
“You don’t have to thank me,” she said.
“I do.”
“The machine disagrees.”
He took a five from his wallet.
She looked at him.
“That is exactly the same kind of bill.”
“It might respect me.”
“It won’t.”
The machine rejected his too.
Richard stared at it.
Mara laughed.
He did as well.
For thirty seconds the strangest night of his life contained a vending machine that hated wealthy men and train attendants equally.
Then his phone rang.
His attorney.
The world started moving again.
By sunrise, Elena’s concussion had been classified as mild, her scan was clear, and police had taken a formal statement about the assault.
The older case would not be solved in one morning.
The officer who interviewed Richard made that plain.
“We can document what you’re telling us. But the crash happened twelve years ago in another jurisdiction. The identification, the missing-person investigation, the financial allegations—those involve several agencies.”
Richard nodded.
“I understand.”
The officer gave him a look suggesting powerful men often said that before discovering procedure applied to them too.
“No,” the officer said. “I mean this could take time.”
Richard almost objected.
Then he thought of twelve years.
“I understand.”
Victoria was cited for the assault and released pending further action. She hired her own lawyer before breakfast.
Richard learned about it when his family attorney asked whether the company would continue paying for her counsel under the executive indemnification policy.
“No.”
“Richard—”
“No corporate funds.”
“She may claim events arose from family business matters.”
“They did not.”
“The foundation transfers could complicate that.”
Richard looked through the hospital waiting-room window at snow piled against the parking lot.
“Then document the conflict and get independent counsel for the company.”
His attorney paused.
“You’re thinking clearly for someone who hasn’t slept.”
“No. I’m doing familiar work because everything else is impossible.”
That answer ended the compliment.
Naomi Park reached the hospital at ten forty-three.
She was forty-one, compact, black-haired, and wore snow boots with a navy suit because the roads were terrible and she had no interest in pretending otherwise.
Elena hugged her.
Naomi froze for half a second, then hugged back.
Richard watched from across the hallway.
He disliked Naomi immediately for reasons he understood were childish.
She represented the twelve years in which he had not protected his daughter.
Naomi looked at him.
“You’re Richard Vale.”
“Yes.”
“Elena tells me you’re cooperating.”
“I intend to.”
“That will matter.”
Her tone carried no gratitude.
Richard almost smiled.
“You don’t like me.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Reasonable.”
Elena came out of the exam room wearing the beige knit sweater and cream trousers she had boarded the train in, now wrinkled and stained at one knee.
She looked exhausted.
Victoria was gone.
Naomi asked where Elena wanted to stay.
Elena looked at Richard.
He tried not to look hopeful.
“A hotel,” she said.
His face did not change quickly enough.
She noticed.
“I’m not ready to go home.”
Richard nodded.
“It isn’t home to you.”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“Not now.”
Elena looked away.
Naomi found her a room under a private reservation near downtown Denver.
Richard offered security.
Elena refused.
Naomi suggested one independent security consultant because Victoria knew where Elena was headed and had already demonstrated physical aggression.
Elena accepted.
Richard paid nothing.
That was Naomi’s condition.
“You don’t want her financially dependent on me.”
“I don’t want anyone later claiming she was.”
Richard nodded.
“You’re good.”
Naomi raised an eyebrow.
“I bill accordingly.”
Elena almost laughed.
Richard liked her slightly more.
Three days later, the first DNA results made uncertainty impossible.
Richard and Elena were father and daughter.
The result came from a private accredited laboratory arranged through lawyers, not because it would resolve the criminal investigation, but because Richard could no longer sleep with one percent doubt.
He received the report in his hotel suite.
He read the conclusion once.
Then again.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
For twelve years he had possessed a death certificate.
Now he possessed a probability.
The absurdity made him laugh.
Then the laugh folded into something else.
He covered his face with both hands.
There was no cinematic collapse, no shouting, no broken furniture.
He sat alone in a hotel room while housekeeping vacuumed somewhere down the hallway.
Twenty minutes later he called Elena.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“Hi.”
He could not speak.
She waited.
Finally she said, “You got it.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Elena.”
“I know.”
“No. I don’t think either of us knows what this is.”
She was quiet.
He looked at the report on the bed.
“I’m your father.”
“You always were.”
The sentence destroyed whatever control he had left.
He turned his face away from the phone though nobody was in the room.
Elena heard him breathing.
She did not tell him not to cry.
She did not tell him everything would be all right.
After a while she said, “I have your nose.”
Richard laughed through the tears.
“No, you don’t.”
“I absolutely do.”
“That nose is your mother’s.”
“Mom’s was better.”
“True.”
May you like
They stayed on the phone without speaking for nearly a minute.
It was the longest conversation they had managed without fear.
