Chương 8
Claire’s throat tightened.
“Then what?”
“My mother decided not to file anything.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know all of it. Fear. Money. Shame. Thomas’s lawyers. The usual ugly collection.”
“And Victoria stayed with him.”
“Yes.”
Claire looked away.
That was the part she could not fit.
Victoria, who had locked Lily outside.
Victoria, who had protected Anna.
Victoria, who had stayed with Thomas.
Victoria, who had lied about Daniel.
People were supposed to become simpler when you discovered the truth about them.
Her family kept doing the opposite.
“Daniel found the letters,” Samuel said.
“How?”
“Your father kept copies.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s monstrous.”
“Yes.”
Claire flinched.
Samuel noticed.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. Don’t apologize.”
“He was your father.”
“He was yours too.”
Samuel’s face changed.
“Biologically.”
The distinction sat between them.
Claire understood suddenly that she had arrived expecting a brother who wanted something.
Money.
Recognition.
Revenge.
Instead she had found a man who seemed to want distance.
“What did Daniel want to do?”
“Expose him.”
“He was dead.”
“His reputation wasn’t.”
“And Victoria?”
“Daniel thought she helped cover it up.”
“Did she?”
Samuel folded the placemat again.
“Yes.”
Claire’s stomach dropped.
“How?”
“She paid my mother through Harrow Street.”
“I know that.”
“No. Before that.”
Samuel reached into his bag.
He placed an envelope on the table.
Inside was a photocopy of an agreement.
Anna Bell had been paid $250,000 in 1999.
The agreement contained confidentiality provisions.
Victoria’s signature appeared at the bottom.
Claire read it twice.
“She bought her silence.”
“That’s what Daniel believed.”
“What do you believe?”
Samuel looked tired.
“I believe my mother used that money to raise me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Claire pushed the document away.
“Why did Daniel hide everything instead of exposing it?”
“Because he found something else.”
“What?”
Samuel looked at her.
“Your father didn’t sign the agreement.”
Claire frowned.
“So?”
“Victoria did.”
“I can see that.”
“No. You don’t understand.”
Samuel leaned forward.
“Thomas didn’t know she paid Anna.”
Claire stared.
“Victoria took money from the company without him knowing. She got Anna out. She paid her. She moved her to Illinois.”
“Then why the confidentiality agreement?”
“To protect Anna.”
Claire shook her head.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if Thomas was threatening her.”
“What threat?”
“To accuse her of stealing from the company.”
Claire went still.
Samuel continued.
“Anna had access to accounts. Thomas told her if she said anything, he’d say she stole money and invented the assault to cover it.”
Claire thought of Harrow Street.
Of Edward.
Of forged signatures.
Of Victoria moving money in secret.
Not once.
For decades.
“Daniel figured out Victoria had created the first version of Harrow Street to get Anna away from him.”
Samuel nodded.
“Then she reused it years later to pay for Daniel’s treatment.”
“Yes.”
“And later?”
“To help me.”
Claire sat back.
“So she wasn’t stealing.”
Samuel’s expression was careful.
“She was stealing.”
“From Thomas.”
“From a company with other shareholders too.”
Claire thought of Edward.
“Right.”
“That’s the problem with making people heroes after you discover they weren’t villains.”
Claire looked at him.
“Daniel said that?”
“No.”
Samuel finally took a bite of pancake.
“That one’s mine.”
Claire laughed despite herself.
Then she cried.
Quietly.
She hated crying in restaurants.
Samuel handed her a napkin.
It was the cheap brown kind that scratched her nose.
“Daniel wanted Victoria to tell you,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because you were planning to take over the family foundation.”
Claire looked at him.
“How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
The foundation.
Claire had forgotten.
For the last year Victoria had been pushing her to become executive director of the Morgan Family Foundation. Claire had resisted because she liked her work at a literacy nonprofit and hated the idea of working under her mother.
Three months ago she had finally agreed.
Her appointment was supposed to be announced after the wedding.
“Daniel thought I’d find the payments.”
“Yes.”
“And if I didn’t know what they were—”
“You might report them.”
“Or cover them up.”
Samuel nodded.
“He didn’t know which scared him more.”
That hurt.
“He thought I might protect the family name.”
“He thought you might protect your mother.”
Claire looked down.
That hurt because it was true.
They spent two hours together.
Samuel did not become her brother during lunch.
That would have been ridiculous.
He became Samuel.
A forty-one-year-old high school history teacher from Evanston who hated mayonnaise, had been divorced for three years, owned a dog named Gerald for reasons he refused to defend, and had once driven six hours to help Daniel move a couch only to discover Daniel had already sold it.
Claire learned that Daniel had met Samuel after finding Anna’s name in their father’s papers.
At first Daniel had suspected Samuel was blackmailing Victoria.
Samuel had thrown him out of his apartment.
Daniel returned the next day with bagels.
“That sounds right,” Claire said.
“He was impossible.”
“Yes.”
“I liked him.”
“So did I.”
When they left the diner, Samuel gave Claire a small box.
Inside was Daniel’s watch.
Claire recognized it immediately.
“Why do you have this?”
“He left it at my apartment two days before he died.”
“Why?”
“He said he’d pick it up.”
Claire held it in her palm.
The leather strap was cracked.
Daniel had owned nicer watches. He preferred this one because Thomas hated it.
Claire closed her fingers around it.
“Keep it,” Samuel said.
“No.”
“He was your brother.”
“He was yours too.”
The words surprised both of them.
Samuel looked away.
“I knew him eighteen months.”
Claire swallowed.
“Apparently eighteen months was enough.”
He took the watch.
Not because he wanted it.
Because she had asked him to carry his share of the dead.
Claire returned to the hotel at three.
Victoria was waiting in the lobby.
Claire walked past her.
“Claire.”
She stopped.
Victoria stood.
“You called him.”
“Yes.”
May you like
“How was he?”
The question disarmed her.
