Chương 3
Sophie flinched.
Daniel sat down again at once.
“Sorry. Sorry.”
“You’re mad.”
“I am.”
“At me?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly enough this time.
Sophie studied him.
Then she leaned sideways until her forehead touched his arm.
Daniel put his hand over the back of her head.
His phone buzzed.
VICTORIA.
He silenced it.
A second message arrived.
Please don’t turn this into something it isn’t.
Daniel read the sentence twice.
Sophie was watching his face.
“Is that her?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to marry her?”
Five-year-olds could walk straight through places adults spent years avoiding.
Daniel locked the phone and set it face down.
“I don’t know.”
Sophie nodded as if he had told her the weather.
Then she said, “I’m hungry.”
It was the most ordinary thing she could have said, and Daniel nearly cried.
Instead he opened the cabinet beside the berth and found two packages of crackers, almonds, a bruised apple, and a chocolate bar.
“Excellent dining options.”
Sophie looked at them.
“Those are Dad foods.”
“What does that mean?”
“Foods you eat when you forgot dinner.”
Despite himself, he laughed.
Sophie’s mouth twitched.
He handed her the crackers.
“Accurate.”
They sat side by side while the storm scraped at the window.
Daniel ate the bruised side of the apple because Sophie had once announced that bruises on fruit were where “the bad taste lived.” She ate six crackers, carefully licking salt from her thumb after each one.
After a while she said, “Victoria says that’s rude.”
“What?”
“Licking.”
He looked at her thumb.
“Probably is.”
Sophie stopped.
Daniel took a cracker, pressed his own thumb into the salt, and licked it.
She stared at him.
“That was extremely rude,” he said.
A small laugh escaped her.
Then, just as quickly, her face fell.
Daniel understood the mistake.
Children could laugh while frightened. It did not mean the fear had left.
Someone knocked.
Sophie stiffened.
Daniel stood.
“Who is it?”
“Mr. Mercer?”
The voice belonged to the train attendant, Nora Ellis, a woman in her fifties who had introduced herself in Denver with the calm competence of someone accustomed to wealthy passengers asking unreasonable questions.
“Yes?”
“Sorry to bother you. The conductor asked me to tell you we may be stopping ahead of Crested Pass. They’ve got debris reported on the line.”
Daniel opened the door a few inches.
Nora wore a navy service jacket and held a radio.
“How long?”
“They don’t know yet.”
“Is it safe?”
“Yes, sir. We’re well clear of the reported slide. Dispatch is bringing us down to restricted speed.”
Her eyes moved past him.
Sophie sat on the bed with the crackers.
Nora’s expression changed slightly.
“You all right, sweetheart?”
Sophie looked at Daniel.
Then nodded.
Nora looked back at him.
“I also wanted to ask whether you still wanted the dining car serviced tonight.”
Daniel frowned.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Ms. Hale asked us to leave it.”
“Leave what?”
“The spill.”
Daniel opened the door another inch.
“When?”
“Just before dinner.”
His pulse changed.
“What exactly did she say?”
Nora seemed to realize she had stepped into something.
“I’m not sure I should—”
“Please.”
She shifted her radio from one hand to the other.
“She asked for a cleaning cloth and said she’d handle a carpet spill herself.”
“Before dinner?”
“Maybe ten minutes before you went forward to see Mr. Ralston.”
Daniel said nothing.
Nora looked uncomfortable.
“She also asked where we kept the cranberry juice.”
Behind him, Sophie stopped eating.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“Did you see what happened?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Okay.”
Nora hesitated.
“I did hear raised voices later.”
“Whose?”
“Ms. Hale’s mostly.”
Victoria’s voice had never needed to be raised to hurt anyone.
Daniel nodded.
“Thank you.”
“Mr. Mercer.”
He waited.
Nora glanced toward Sophie again.
“I don’t know what happened in there.”
“I know.”
“But if you need someone to sit with your daughter while you speak privately, I can arrange it. One of our hospitality staff has a daughter about her age.”
Sophie immediately said, “I can stay by myself.”
Daniel turned.
“No.”
“I can.”
“That’s not happening.”
Nora pretended not to hear the exchange.
Daniel thanked her and closed the door.
Sophie held the cracker package in both hands.
“She knew about the cloth.”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe me now?”
Daniel sat down.
The question felt like a verdict.
“Yes.”
Sophie did not look relieved.
She looked tired.
That hurt more.
“What did you believe before?”
Daniel could have lied.
He could have told her he had always believed her in some broad, parental sense. That would have sounded kind and meant nothing.
“I wasn’t sure.”
Sophie looked at the floor.
“I told you.”
“I know.”
“You always say tell the truth.”
“I know.”
“But you weren’t sure.”
“No.”
She folded the top of the cracker package down twice.
Daniel could not repair the last ten minutes, much less the last several months.
“I’m sorry.”
Sophie shrugged.
It was a terrible imitation of Victoria.
Daniel saw that too.
He had spent the year admiring how quickly Sophie had picked up Victoria’s table manners, her habit of saying excuse me when interrupting, the way she placed napkins in her lap.
He had not wondered what else she had been learning.
“Has Victoria done things like this before?”
Sophie’s eyes went to the window.
Snow flashed against the glass.
“Like juice?”
“Like making you clean things you didn’t do.”
“No.”
That should have been reassuring.
It wasn’t.
“Has she said things about me not wanting you?”
Sophie pressed her lips together.
Daniel waited.
“She says you get headaches.”
“I do get headaches.”
“She says I make them.”
He looked down at his hands.
“When did she say that?”
“When I ask where you are.”
“How often do you ask?”
“I don’t know.”
“Every day?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did she tell you not to call me?”
Sophie’s silence answered before she did.
“She says your meetings are money.”
May you like
“What does that mean?”
“She says when I call you in meetings, people stop giving you money.”
