Part 2
“Is she going to be all right?” Daniel asked.
Dr. Patel glanced at Amelia before answering. “Right now, both of them are stable. That’s what I can tell you honestly.”
Amelia appreciated the sentence even as she hated it.
A police officer came in while a nurse was adjusting the monitor straps. Detective Lena Ortiz was in her forties, with tired eyes and a raincoat folded over one arm despite the clear night. She apologized for the timing and said she would keep the questions brief.
“Do you feel able to talk?”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at her. “You don’t have to.”
“I do.”
Ortiz pulled a chair closer. “Tell me what happened before you fell.”
Amelia looked at the green line moving across the fetal monitor. “Vanessa Hale confronted me near the upper doors.”
“About what?”
“A provenance report.”
“Explain that like I know nothing about museums.”
“It’s a record of where an object came from. Ownership history. Export documents. Sales. Transfers. For some objects, a gap in that history can mean it was stolen, looted, or illegally moved.”
“And your report found that?”
“My report found altered records. Three antiquities in our collection have acquisition files that don’t match the original donor documents.”
“Who donated them?”
“The Hale Foundation.”
Daniel’s head turned.
Amelia had told him there were problems at work. She had not told him the foundation’s name.
Ortiz noticed. “Your husband didn’t know?”
“Not all of it.”
“Why not?”
“Because the report was confidential.”
Daniel released her hand.
The movement was small, but Amelia felt it.
Ortiz asked, “What did Ms. Hale say?”
“She told me I was misinterpreting routine corrections. She wanted me to delay submitting the report to the board until after the gala.”
“Did she threaten you?”
“Not directly.”
“What did she do?”
“She blocked the door. I tried to go around her. She held my upper arms.”
“Hard?”
“Hard enough that I couldn’t move.”
“Then?”
“I told her to let go. She said I didn’t understand what I was destroying. I felt pain in my abdomen. She released me. I stepped backward.”
“Did she push you?”
Amelia closed her eyes.
She saw Vanessa’s face, the wall lamps behind her, the pale oval of Victor’s cuff. She remembered pressure on her arms. Then no pressure. She remembered reaching for the rail.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel stood and walked to the window.
Ortiz kept her voice neutral. “You don’t know whether she pushed you?”
“I know her hands were on me. I know they came away. I don’t know whether she shoved me or whether I lost my balance when the pain started.”
“Could she have caught you?”
Amelia looked toward the window. Daniel’s shoulders were rigid beneath his suit.
“Yes,” she said. “Maybe.”
Ortiz wrote something down. “You told your husband she knew about the report.”
“She did.”
“Could that be why she confronted you?”
“Yes.”
“Could it be why she pushed you?”
“I said I don’t know if she pushed me.”
The detective paused.
Amelia heard the faint squeak of rubber soles in the hall and the soft electronic pulse of her daughter’s heartbeat.
“What do you want me to write?” she asked.
“The truth.”
“That is the truth.”
Ortiz nodded. “Then that’s what I’ll write.”
After the detective left, Daniel stayed at the window.
Amelia waited through another contraction.
“You’re angry,” she said.
He gave a quiet, humorless laugh. “That’s one word.”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“You could have told me you were in danger.”
“I didn’t know I was.”
“She grabbed you at the top of a staircase.”
“I didn’t expect that.”
“You said there were politics at work. You said the director was being difficult. You didn’t say you’d found evidence against the family that funds half the museum.”
“Not half.”
He turned. “That’s the part you want to correct?”
“No.”
Daniel pressed both hands against the windowsill. “You made me think you were dealing with budget meetings.”
“I was trying to protect the investigation.”
“From me?”
“From everyone.”
The baby shifted beneath the monitor. A small, sudden movement against Amelia’s palm.
She breathed out.
Daniel saw it. His expression softened for one second, then closed again.
“You told me we were done keeping things from each other,” he said.
“That was about the mortgage.”
“It was about us.”
A nurse entered to check Amelia’s blood pressure. Daniel stepped aside. Neither of them spoke while the cuff tightened around Amelia’s arm.
The nurse looked between them and said, “I’m going to pretend I don’t feel the temperature in here.”
Amelia almost smiled.
Daniel did not.
At two in the morning, the contractions slowed. At three, Daniel fell asleep in the chair with his arms crossed and his chin against his chest. At four, Amelia woke to find the fetal monitor showing a steady rhythm and the room filled with the pale blue light that came before sunrise.
Her phone lay on the bedside table. Forty-eight messages waited.
The museum director had called six times.
There were texts from coworkers, board members, and numbers she did not recognize. One message came from Vanessa.
I am sorry you fell. I did not push you. Please do not let Victor or the museum speak for me.
Amelia read it twice.
Then she took a screenshot and turned the phone facedown.
Daniel woke when breakfast arrived. He looked disoriented until he saw where he was. Then he stood too quickly and knocked the plastic water pitcher against the wall.
“Sorry,” he said to no one.
The hospital eggs were gray at the edges. Amelia ate toast while Daniel drank coffee that smelled burned. They avoided the report until Dr. Patel returned.
“You’ve gone six hours without a contraction,” the doctor said. “The tracing looks good. I want another ultrasound this afternoon. If nothing changes, you may be able to go home tomorrow with restrictions.”
“What restrictions?” Amelia asked.
May you like
“No work, no driving for several days, limited stairs, and no gala confrontations.”
Daniel looked down at his coffee.
