Part 2
The scratch at her hairline was no longer bleeding. A faint red line disappeared beneath her brown hair.
“I brought her here,” Claire said.
Daniel’s hands loosened on Veronica’s wrists.
Ruth stared at her.
Veronica turned far enough to look at Daniel over her shoulder. The change in her expression was slight, almost tender.
“You really don’t know anything.”
Daniel released her with one hand long enough to pull a bar stool away from the island.
“Sit.”
Veronica glanced at the stool.
“Sit down.”
She obeyed. Daniel kept hold of one wrist while Ruth retrieved the flare launcher and carried it at arm’s length to the far counter.
“Open it,” Daniel said.
Ruth looked at him.
“The launcher. Make sure it’s empty.”
“I don’t know how.”
“There’s a release beside the trigger guard.”
Her hands shook so badly that the launcher rattled against the marble. Claire took it from her.
“Give me that,” Daniel said.
“I know how it works.”
“How?”
Claire pressed the release. The barrel opened. A spent aluminum casing showed inside.
Daniel looked at her.
“The lake safety course,” she said. “You made me take it twice.”
Ruth crossed the kitchen and picked up the cordless telephone mounted beside the pantry door. She pressed the button and listened.
“No line.”
“The storm took the line yesterday,” Daniel said. “Use my phone.”
“It’s in the living room,” Claire said.
“How do you know?”
“I saw it.”
Daniel looked past her. His phone rested near the edge of the pale rug, its screen dark.
“Get it,” he told Ruth.
Veronica sat straight on the stool, one wrist still in Daniel’s hand. She did not struggle. Her satin sleeve had pulled back, showing a small bruise on her forearm. Daniel did not remember causing it, but he eased his grip anyway.
Ruth returned with the phone.
“The screen is cracked.”
“It was cracked before.”
“It won’t wake.”
Daniel took it, pressed the side button, then held it against his palm. Nothing.
“Claire’s phone,” he said.
Claire looked at the floor.
“Where is it?”
“In your office.”
“What is it doing in my office?”
Veronica smiled faintly.
Daniel felt the first real shape of the night forming around him.
He looked from Claire to the broken vase. The fragments were ordinary white ceramic, hand-painted with narrow blue reeds. It had stood beside the fireplace for years. Ruth bought flowers for it every Monday, even after Howard Vale died and the house began to feel less like a home than an expensive body waiting to be examined.
Among the fragments lay something darker than the rug.
A scorched strip of heavy paper.
Veronica saw him notice.
Daniel released her wrist.
He crossed to the fireplace and crouched. Heat still radiated from the stone. The flare had gouged a black mark into the hearth and melted a patch of the rug. He pinched the paper between two fingers.
Only three words remained legible.
Amendment of Trust.
He stood.
Claire’s chin lifted, though her face had lost color.
Daniel held up the burned scrap.
“What did you take from my office?”
No one answered.
“Claire.”
She rubbed her thumb across the seam of her sweater.
“I found it last week.”
“Found what?”
“You know what.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“Howard’s amendment.”
Ruth made a low sound and sat down on the nearest stool.
Daniel looked at her. She avoided his eyes.
Veronica rested both palms on her knees. She had become composed again, but now he recognized the effort required. Her fingers pressed too hard into the satin. Her chest rose in shallow increments.
“You told me it didn’t exist,” she said.
Daniel kept looking at Ruth.
“I asked you a direct question after Howard died. You stood in the library and told me there was no later document.”
“There was no valid later document.”
“That is not what you said.”
“It was signed when he was sick.”
“It was signed when he was dying. Those are not the same thing.”
Claire moved closer to the fireplace. Daniel stepped in front of the burned scrap without deciding to.
“You went through my files.”
“You hid it.”
“That office is locked.”
“I know where you keep the key.”
“Of course you do.”
The words came out with a bitterness that surprised them both.
Claire stared at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ve been treating this house like a place where rules belong to everybody except you.”
“I learned from you.”
Ruth closed her eyes.
Veronica’s small smile disappeared. The room settled around the words. Through the windows, late-afternoon light lay across Marrow Lake in long silver bands. A motorboat crossed near the opposite shore, too far away for anyone aboard it to know that a flare had been fired inside the Vale mansion.
Daniel folded the paper scrap once.
“Where is the rest?”
“The flare destroyed it,” Veronica said.
Claire shook her head.
Daniel turned to her.
“The original wasn’t in the vase,” she said.
Veronica stood so quickly that the stool legs scraped against the floor.
Daniel moved between them.
“Sit down.”
“She lied to me.”
“You aimed a flare launcher at her.”
“I aimed at the vase.”
“You fired inside a house with three people ten feet away.”
“She told me the document was inside.”
“And you believed burning it was the sensible response?”
“I wasn’t trying to burn it.”
Daniel looked at the blackened hearth.
“Then what were you trying to do?”
Veronica opened her mouth, but the answer did not come.
Claire supplied it.
“She thought it was sealed inside the vase.”
Ruth looked toward the fragments. “Sealed?”
“She thought Howard hid the signed copy in there.”
“Why would he do such a thing?”
“Because she told me he hid things from Dad.”
Daniel turned toward Veronica.
“What have you been telling her?”
“The truth, mostly.”
“Mostly.”
May you like
“I said Howard stopped trusting you.”
“Howard trusted everyone when it made him feel generous and no one when it made him feel clever. You knew that better than anybody.”
