Part 3
She opened her eyes. “What?”
“The front doors are open. You’re cold.”
“I’m not cold.”
“You are.”
“I don’t need you to manage me.”
“No,” Daniel said. “You don’t.”
She stared at him.
The ambulance arrived before either of them spoke again.
The local paramedics entered through the grand doors carrying equipment past the donors, the china, and the unfinished dessert course. Daniel recognized one of them, a lieutenant named Hannah Price, though they had met only at regional training exercises. She gave him a short nod and then treated him like any other family member, which he appreciated.
Thomas allowed the examination with mild impatience. His temperature was low but not immediately dangerous. His blood pressure dropped when they helped him stand. He was dehydrated, and his heart rhythm showed enough irregularity to justify transport.
“Which hospital?” Hannah asked.
“St. Vincent’s,” Evelyn said.
Thomas looked at Daniel. “County.”
Evelyn’s mouth tightened. “Your cardiologist is at St. Vincent’s.”
“My records are at County now.”
Daniel looked from one to the other.
“When did that change?” he asked.
Thomas rubbed the brass fire engine with one finger. “Last month.”
Evelyn answered before he could. “He changed doctors during one of his moods. It has been difficult to keep anything consistent.”
Hannah crouched so Thomas would not have to look up at her. “Mr. Mercer, do you want County Medical Center?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s where we’ll take you.”
Evelyn looked toward Charles.
Charles lowered his gaze.
As the paramedics prepared the stretcher, a donor approached Daniel. She was a woman in her sixties with a gray silk shawl and the careful diction of someone accustomed to board meetings.
“Captain Mercer,” she said quietly, “I did not know your father would be attending tonight.”
Daniel glanced at Thomas. “Apparently he wasn’t.”
The woman absorbed the answer. “Your sister told us he had decided to avoid public events because of his health.”
“That may be true.”
“He called me yesterday.”
Daniel turned fully toward her.
The woman’s fingers tightened around the edge of her shawl. “He asked whether the foundation vote had already occurred. I assumed he was confused. Evelyn had told us he no longer handled foundation matters.”
“What vote?”
The woman looked at Evelyn, who stood beside the stretcher speaking to Hannah.
“The property transfer,” she said. “This estate and forty-two acres. To the Mercer Public Service Foundation.”
Daniel felt the room change again, though no one had moved.
“Tonight?”
“The board was supposed to affirm it after dinner.”
“Was my father supposed to sign something?”
“I believed he already had.”
Across the room, Charles Wren sat down heavily in the chair he had vacated earlier.
Daniel walked toward him.
Charles did not ask why.
“What property transfer?” Daniel said.
Charles looked at the music box on Thomas’s lap, then at the guests.
“Not here.”
“You chose here when you came to witness it.”
“I did not come to witness a signature.”
“Why did you come?”
Charles rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Because Evelyn asked me to reassure the board that the trust documents were in order.”
“Are they?”
The solicitor’s silence lasted long enough for Hannah to wheel Thomas through the grand doors.
Daniel followed the stretcher without waiting for the answer.
Outside, the night air smelled of leaves and exhaust. The estate’s circular drive was crowded with black sedans and hired cars. Red emergency light moved across the cream stone walls, the tall windows, and the faces of guests who had drifted onto the front steps.
Thomas reached beneath the blanket and extended the music box toward Daniel.
“Bring it,” he said.
Daniel took it.
Evelyn came down the steps behind him. “I’m riding with him.”
Thomas looked at her.
For a moment, Daniel expected anger. What appeared instead was weariness.
“No,” Thomas said.
Evelyn stopped on the final step.
Daniel handed the music box to Hannah for safekeeping, then climbed into the ambulance.
As the rear doors closed, he saw his sister standing alone beneath the portico. Her diamonds still caught the chandelier light from inside. Charles remained three steps above her, close enough to speak but not close enough to offer comfort.
The ambulance pulled away.
Thomas lay with his eyes shut while Hannah started fluids. Daniel sat beside the stretcher, his knees angled awkwardly in the confined space. He had spent hundreds of hours in ambulances, but never like this. He had always preferred the working side of emergencies—the questions, the procedures, the sequence of useful actions. Sitting still left room for thoughts he had avoided during the drive from Hartford.
At 5:12 that afternoon, while he stood in a reception hall holding a paper cup of bad coffee beneath a banner bearing the state seal, he had listened to a voicemail from his father.
There had been no greeting. No explanation. Only Thomas breathing close to the receiver and the sound of the music box turning through six notes before the call ended.
Daniel had listened twice.
He and his father had not spoken in eleven months.
The last conversation had lasted less than four minutes and ended with Thomas saying, “You always arrive after the hard part and call it principle.”
Daniel had deleted the voicemail, then recovered it before leaving Hartford.
Now he watched fluid move through the clear line into his father’s arm.
“Why did you call me?” he asked.
Thomas opened his eyes.
“Because Evelyn took the box.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“It answered it for you.”
Daniel leaned back against the ambulance wall. His medal pressed into his chest when the vehicle turned.
“You knew I’d recognize the sound.”
“I hoped you would.”
“You could have said you needed help.”
Thomas looked toward Hannah, who pretended to be occupied with the monitor.
“I wasn’t sure I did,” he said.
“Were you locked in that room before tonight?”
“No.”
“Were you confined anywhere else?”
“No.”
“Has she stopped you from leaving the house?”
May you like
Thomas hesitated.
Daniel felt his jaw tighten. “Dad.”
