Chương 2
“Because you’re smart enough to resent supervision,” he had said, “and human enough to need it.”
She had rolled her eyes at him.
Now she wanted five minutes with him badly enough that it became a physical ache.
Martin looked toward Daniel.
“What happened?”
Nobody answered.
Vanessa’s phone remained pointed at them.
Martin noticed.
“You should stop recording.”
Vanessa gave him a polite smile.
“You should probably assume I won’t.”
Eleanor found her voice.
“This is a private family matter.”
Martin looked at the jet, the van, Claire’s luggage, the box, then at Eleanor.
“Mrs. Mercer, you became involved in my client’s affairs when your office began contacting the trust company about accelerated distribution procedures.”
Claire turned toward Eleanor.
“What?”
Eleanor’s expression remained composed.
Daniel closed his eyes briefly.
There it was again—a delay before reaction, the fraction of a second that told Claire he knew more than she did.
Martin saw it too.
“Perhaps,” he said, “we should go inside.”
“No.”
Claire surprised herself.
Her fingers were numb around the envelope.
“No more rooms where everyone gets to decide what I know before I walk in.”
Rain struck the concrete outside in silver sheets. Somewhere beyond the hangar, thunder rolled over the runway.
Daniel looked at her.
“Claire, nobody’s deciding—”
She turned on him.
“You were putting me on a plane.”
His mouth closed.
“To New York,” Eleanor said. “Not a prison transport.”
“I was told we were going to dinner with your lender.”
“We were.”
“And I was supposed to sign something.”
The silence answered before anyone did.
Claire looked at Martin.
“What was I supposed to sign?”
Beth Rowan opened her portfolio but did not remove anything.
“We received a request this afternoon for confirmation of procedures that would apply if you elected to receive a significant portion of the trust assets directly rather than continue holding them under the existing structure.”
Claire stared at her.
“I didn’t make that request.”
“We know.”
That frightened her more than if Beth had hesitated.
Martin stepped closer.
“We tried your phone.”
Claire looked at Daniel.
Her phone was in the van.
Daniel had taken it from her at the house when she was struggling with the suitcase zipper and told her he would charge it in the car.
She had not thought about it after that.
“Give me my phone.”
Daniel reached into his coat pocket.
Not the van.
His coat.
Claire looked at the phone in his hand.
Then at him.
“You had it.”
“I was going to give it back.”
“When?”
“Claire.”
“When?”
He extended it to her.
She did not take it.
Martin did.
He glanced at the screen.
“It’s off.”
“The battery died,” Daniel said.
Martin pressed the power button.
The screen lit immediately.
Thirty-eight percent.
Daniel looked down.
Claire did not slap him again.
The fact that she wanted to made her feel strangely calm.
She took the phone from Martin.
There were seventeen missed calls.
Six from Martin.
Four from Beth.
Three from a number she did not recognize.
Two from Nora, her college roommate.
One from her dentist.
One from Daniel, placed at 5:18 that afternoon, probably before he took the phone.
Claire laughed once.
Nobody else did.
“My dentist got through.”
Daniel rubbed the inside of his lower lip with his tongue, something he did when he was cornered in an argument.
She knew that about him.
She knew how he liked his eggs. She knew he hated the seam inside dress socks. She knew he would leave half a cup of coffee on any flat surface and then complain that the housekeeper threw coffee away.
She knew the scar beneath his chin came from falling off a bicycle at eleven.
She knew how he slept, one arm bent beneath the pillow.
She did not know why he had married her.
Or perhaps she did.
That was the problem.
Beth glanced toward the hangar offices.
“We should at least get out of the rain.”
Claire looked at the envelope in her hand.
“What else is in this?”
Martin’s eyes settled on the turquoise box.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Your father prepared it himself. He instructed me to deliver it to you on your thirty-first birthday if certain conditions existed.”
“My birthday was yesterday.”
“I know.”
Claire stared at him.
Martin looked genuinely ashamed.
“The courier attempted delivery to the Mercer residence yesterday morning. The household office refused it because you were listed as unavailable. We sent another notice electronically. This afternoon, Beth’s office received the request regarding accelerated distribution. At that point I stopped treating the missed delivery as administrative.”
Eleanor said, “You’re implying criminal conduct where there is none.”
Martin looked at her.
“No. I am explaining why I drove through a thunderstorm.”
Vanessa lowered the phone enough to glance at her mother.
Claire saw something move between them.
Not affection.
Calculation.
Eleanor turned to Daniel.
“We’re leaving.”
“No,” Daniel said.
The word was quiet.
His mother blinked.
Daniel stared at the wet concrete between his shoes.
“We’re not.”
Claire hated that some part of her still noticed how exhausted he looked.
That part of her felt like betrayal too.
Eleanor stepped closer.
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
Daniel finally looked at her.
“I think that’s been the problem.”
For a moment, Claire saw neither a wealthy family nor a conspiracy nor a marriage collapsing under aircraft lights.
She saw a thirty-eight-year-old man frightened of his mother.
It did not make him innocent.
It made everything sadder.
Martin moved toward the hangar office.
“Inside. Now.”
This time Claire went.
She carried the turquoise box herself.
Daniel walked behind her, then Eleanor, then Vanessa, still recording. Beth spoke briefly to the limousine driver before following.
May you like
No one boarded the jet.
The small conference room attached to the hangar smelled of burnt coffee and printer toner. Someone had left a football game paused on the wall television. A plastic container of powdered creamer sat beside the machine with a handwritten label that said AVIATION USE ONLY, which Claire stared at for several seconds because her brain seemed determined to notice anything except her husband.
