Chương 10
“You bought Melissa.”
He looked at her.
“I paid for information.”
“That is what buying someone means.”
“She approached me first.”
“That makes it better?”
“No.”
“Did Andrew know?”
“No.”
“Did Vanessa?”
“No.”
“Did you think you were protecting him?”
“Yes.”
“From what?”
“Her.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“And who was protecting him from you?”
Richard sat down.
The question landed harder than she expected.
He took off his glasses.
“No one.”
Claire paced between the shelves.
“You paid a clinic administrator to give you private communications.”
“Yes.”
“You hid duplicated DNA results from me.”
“Yes.”
“You tried to control when Vanessa’s claims were disclosed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I have spent thirty years cleaning up this family’s problems before they became public.”
“They’re people.”
“I know.”
“You treated them like liability.”
“Yes.”
“Stop agreeing with me.”
Richard looked almost amused.
“I’m on leave. I have fewer tools.”
Claire stopped pacing.
“What happens to you?”
“I will probably lose my position.”
“As lawyer?”
“Possibly my license, depending on what investigators determine and what I disclosed or obtained improperly.”
“Does that scare you?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t look scared.”
“I am fifty-two years old. Looking scared stopped being useful around forty.”
That sounded so much like him that Claire’s anger softened against her will.
She sat opposite him.
“Why did Vanessa say you chose the institution after her miscarriage?”
Richard rubbed his thumb over the bridge of his glasses.
“Because I did.”
“I know that story.”
“No. You know the board meeting.”
Claire waited.
“There was another part.”
Andrew had wanted to resign from Hale Maritime after the miscarriage.
His father threatened to cut off funding for a medical foundation Vanessa had created in her mother’s name.
Richard had drafted the agreement that kept Andrew in the company.
Vanessa had begged him not to.
Richard had done it anyway.
The company refinanced.
The foundation survived.
Andrew stayed.
The marriage did not.
Claire stared at him.
“You think because the foundation survived, the choice was justified.”
“I used to.”
“And now?”
Richard looked around the library.
Portraits of Hales covered one wall.
Men in uniforms.
Women beside horses.
Children standing stiffly in summer clothes.
People who had turned into assets and obligations after death.
“Now I think institutions are very good at convincing the people inside them that survival is the same thing as goodness.”
Claire was quiet.
Richard looked at her.
“And I think I taught Andrew that.”
She wanted to tell him Andrew was responsible for himself.
She also wanted to blame Richard.
Both feelings were true.
“Did Andrew love Vanessa?”
Richard closed his eyes briefly.
“That is not a question I can answer for a dead man.”
“Did he love me?”
“Same answer.”
Claire’s throat tightened.
Richard leaned forward.
“But I can tell you something he said.”
She hated herself for wanting it.
“What?”
“The day he signed the embryo directive, he asked whether I thought you would leave him if he told you.”
Claire looked down.
“What did you say?”
“I said I didn’t know.”
“And what did he say?”
Richard swallowed.
“He said, ‘That’s the problem. She might stay.’”
Claire covered her mouth.
For a long time, she could not speak.
It was not romantic.
That was why she believed it.
Andrew had been afraid Claire would understand him and remain, and that remaining would make her pain his responsibility rather than a punishment he could blame on abandonment.
Cowardice had many sophisticated names.
Love sometimes borrowed them.
Claire went home and moved Andrew’s shoes.
Not far.
From beside the front door to the hall closet.
She sat on the floor afterward and cried until her back hurt.
Then she got up, washed her face, and ordered Thai food because the baby seemed determined to demand noodles whenever Claire was least emotionally prepared to feed anyone.
Nora came over.
She noticed the shoes were gone.
She did not mention them.
Instead she held up two takeout containers.
“I got mango sticky rice.”
“That’s too much sugar.”
“You are carrying a Hale. They’ve survived worse.”
Claire laughed.
Then she said, “Vanessa’s baby isn’t Andrew’s.”
Nora stopped.
“Oh.”
“Michael Trent.”
“The architect?”
“You know him?”
“I have Google.”
Claire stared at her.
“You’ve been researching?”
“I’m nosy, not dead.”
“Nora.”
“What?”
“You promised you’d stop.”
“I promised I’d stop reading comments.”
“That is lawyer behavior.”
“I’m learning from Richard.”
Claire gave her a look.
Nora’s face softened.
“So what now?”
“Prosecutors decide whether to charge Vanessa.”
“No, I mean you.”
Claire opened the food.
Steam fogged her glasses.
“I have no idea.”
But she did know one thing.
She did not want the trustees to use Vanessa’s fraud as proof that Claire’s child should inherit unquestioned control of everything Andrew had owned.
The thought had been growing for weeks, quietly enough that she mistook it for anxiety.
The will treated bloodline like qualification.
The family treated pregnancy like corporate succession.
Andrew’s unborn child had become an argument before taking a breath.
Claire could not stop the inheritance.
She could decide what she did with it.
The next morning, she called the trustees.
The chairman sounded relieved until she spoke.
“I want the voting shares held independently until my child is an adult.”
Silence.
“Claire, that would require significant restructuring.”
“I know.”
“You would surrender substantial control.”
“Yes.”
“Have you discussed this with counsel?”
“I have my own counsel now.”
Another silence.
“We should meet.”
“We will.”
“May I ask what prompted this?”
Claire looked at Andrew’s wedding ring on the dresser.
Not hers.
His.
The hospital had returned it inside a plastic bag with his wallet and watch.
“A long education.”
The chairman did not understand.
That was fine.
Vanessa was arrested eleven days later.
Not at Hale House.
Not during a gala.
May you like
Not in front of cameras.
She appeared with her attorney at the county courthouse on a gray Tuesday morning and surrendered on charges related to conspiracy, falsification of records, misuse of foundation funds, and attempted fraud in the probate matter.
