Chương 8
Leah crossed this time.
He remained on the curb.
The DNA collection took place three days later in a medical office selected by both attorneys. Leah arrived early. Julian arrived earlier.
They sat in separate chairs beneath a television playing a cooking show without sound. A technician checked their identification, explained the chain-of-custody procedure, and swabbed the inside of their cheeks.
The entire process took twelve minutes.
Julian had worn a dark suit. Leah wore jeans and the pale-green blouse because she had a job interview afterward at a small plant shop. She left the brooch at home.
When the technician sealed the samples, Julian watched the envelopes as if they were fragile.
“Results usually take several business days,” she said.
“How many?” he asked.
“Five to seven.”
He nodded, dissatisfied with time itself.
Outside, Julian offered Leah coffee.
She said no.
He asked whether she needed transportation.
She said no.
He stood beside the building entrance while she ordered a car.
“You can leave,” she said.
“I know.”
“Are you going to stand here until my car arrives?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He considered the question.
“I don’t know what else fathers are supposed to do.”
“You’re not my father yet.”
“No.”
“And standing near traffic isn’t parenting.”
“I suspected that.”
She almost smiled, then stopped herself.
The plant shop interview lasted nine minutes. The owner recognized her from the video and said hiring her would attract the wrong kind of attention. She claimed business had been slow and she could not risk people coming in to stare.
Leah thanked her and left.
On the sidewalk, she saw Julian’s car half a block away.
Anger rose so quickly that she walked to it and struck the passenger window with her knuckles.
The driver lowered the glass.
Julian was not inside.
Only the driver, an older woman with silver braids, looked back at her.
“Mr. Mercer asked me to wait in case you needed a ride,” she said.
“I told him no.”
“He told me that too.”
“Then why are you here?”
The driver glanced at the florist shop.
“He thought the interview might not go well.”
Leah stepped back.
The woman’s expression softened.
“He did not ask me to follow you. I was already parked.”
“That’s not better.”
“No,” the driver said. “It probably isn’t.”
Leah took the subway home.
When she arrived, three envelopes had been pushed beneath her door. Two contained offers from television programs. The third had no return address.
Inside was a photocopy of a check dated four months after Leah’s birth. The check was drawn from a private Ashcroft account and made payable to Rosa Moreno for fifteen thousand dollars.
A handwritten note was clipped to it.
Ask why your honest mother took the money.
Leah sat on the hallway floor.
Rosa’s signature appeared on the back of the check.
For an hour, Leah did nothing.
Then she tore open boxes in Rosa’s closet. She searched old bank statements, tax returns, notebooks, drawers, coat pockets, and the lining of the cookie tin. At dusk she found a deposit slip for the same amount.
The money had entered Rosa’s account.
Two weeks later, almost all of it had gone to a hospital.
Leah called the number on the old statement. The hospital had merged with another system. The billing department could not search records without a patient name and date of service.
She gave Claire’s name.
No result.
She gave Rosa’s.
The clerk placed her on hold for twelve minutes.
“There was an account,” the clerk said, “but I cannot release details without authorization.”
“Was she the patient?”
“I can’t say.”
“Can you tell me if the payment was for maternity care?”
“I can’t say.”
Leah closed her eyes.
“Can you tell me anything?”
“I can send a records request form.”
Rosa had taken Eleanor’s money.
That fact sat in the apartment like another person.
Tessa came after her shift. She read the photocopy and the note, then examined the envelope with the seriousness of someone accustomed to determining whether an animal had eaten something poisonous.
“Could the check be fake?” she asked.
“The deposit isn’t.”
“Maybe Rosa used it to help your mother.”
“Maybe she was paid to disappear.”
“She raised you.”
“That doesn’t answer what she did before.”
“No.”
Leah opened the refrigerator and stared inside. It contained mustard, eggs, a soft cucumber, and leftover noodles.
“I spent eight months changing her sheets,” she said. “She could have told me.”
Tessa leaned against the counter. “She could have told you a lot of things.”
“I asked.”
“When you were twelve.”
“I asked again when I was twenty.”
“What did she say?”
“That dead people deserve some privacy.”
“That sounds like Rosa.”
“It sounds like guilt.”
“It could be both.”
Leah shut the refrigerator.
“I need to know who sent this.”
“Eleanor?”
“Too obvious.”
“People do obvious things when they’re scared.”
“Julian?”
“Why would he make Rosa look bad?”
“To make himself look less bad.”
Tessa considered it. “That’s unpleasantly possible.”
“Benjamin Mercer.”
“Who?”
“Their son.”
Tessa searched on her phone.
Benjamin appeared in photographs beside his parents at hotel openings and foundation dinners. Thirty-one, executive vice president of Mercer Hospitality, graduate of a business school Leah had heard of but could not afford to think about. He had Eleanor’s dark hair and Julian’s guarded expression.
“He looks like a man who says ‘circle back’ during arguments,” Tessa said.
A message appeared on Leah’s phone from an unknown number.
This is Benjamin Mercer. I believe someone is attempting to manipulate both of our families. I would like to meet privately.
Tessa held up her phone.
“Apparently he also appears when insulted.”
They met the next morning in a diner Marisol selected.
May you like
Benjamin arrived wearing a navy overcoat and no tie. He resembled Julian less in person. His face was narrower, his movements quicker. He looked at Leah once, then avoided doing it again, as though resemblance might be contagious.
Marisol sat beside Leah. Benjamin brought his attorney, a compact man who ordered tea and never drank it.
