Chương 11
Celia stopped peeling the orange.
“I asked a question,” she said. “I didn’t tell him anything.”
“What question?” Daniel asked.
“Whether your past could affect custody.”
Daniel’s voice lowered.
“In front of him?”
“I thought he was watching television.”
“I wasn’t,” Toby said.
Celia set the orange down.
“I’m sorry.”
Daniel looked at his son.
“My attorney is talking to people,” he said. “There may be consequences for things I did before you were born.”
“What consequences?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Jail?”
“Maybe.”
Toby pushed away from the table. The chair legs scraped the floor.
“You said you wouldn’t leave.”
“I said I wouldn’t choose to.”
“That’s the same.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It feels the same.”
Toby ran upstairs.
Daniel moved to follow.
Miriam stepped in front of him.
“Give him a minute.”
“He thinks I lied.”
“He thinks safety keeps changing shape.”
Daniel looked toward the stairs.
Celia wrapped the orange peel around her fingers.
“This is my fault,” she said.
Daniel did not answer.
She looked at him. “Say it.”
“What?”
“Say you blame me.”
“I already did.”
“Then say it again. You clearly need to.”
Daniel gripped the counter.
Celia’s eyes shone.
“You left me with Dad, and now you’re angry because I learned to believe him when it was easier.”
“I was a child.”
“So was I.”
“I came back for you.”
“When?”
“The next week.”
“With Elias in a stolen car and a gun under the seat. You told me we could disappear. I was fifteen. I had school. I had friends. I had no idea who you were.”
“I was trying to save you.”
“You were trying to make leaving feel noble.”
Daniel stared at her.
Celia’s voice broke.
“Dad hurt Toby because of you.”
Miriam rose.
“That is not an appropriate statement.”
“It’s true.”
“No,” Daniel said. “Victor hurt Toby because Victor chose to.”
“He wanted something from you.”
“That doesn’t make me responsible.”
“No? You brought all of this into our lives and never told us.”
“I tried to keep it away.”
“You failed.”
The word remained between them.
Daniel heard Toby moving upstairs. A drawer opened, then closed.
He wanted to tell Celia she had no right to judge him. He wanted to remind her that she had put Toby in Victor’s car. He wanted to say something precise enough to wound her into silence.
Instead he picked up the orange and placed it in the refrigerator.
“You’re right,” he said.
Celia’s face tightened.
“I failed.”
The admission gave her no satisfaction. It seemed to leave her without a place to put her anger.
Daniel went upstairs.
Toby had packed a backpack.
Inside were two shirts, a flashlight, a plastic dinosaur, three granola bars, and Nora’s framed photograph.
“Where are you going?” Daniel asked.
“Aunt Celia’s.”
“You can’t stay there right now.”
“Then the hospital.”
“You don’t need the hospital.”
“They don’t let Grandpa in.”
“Neither do I.”
“He got into my school.”
Daniel sat on the floor outside the bedroom door.
Toby zipped the bag.
“Can we talk?” Daniel asked.
“No.”
“Can I sit here?”
“You already are.”
Daniel rested his back against the wall.
For several minutes neither spoke. Peanut scratched at his plastic cone downstairs. A truck reversed somewhere outside, its warning tone repeating.
Toby emerged carrying the backpack.
Daniel looked up.
“I’m scared too,” he said.
Toby’s face hardened in the solemn way children’s faces did when they were trying to become older than fear.
“You’re a grown-up.”
“That doesn’t fix it.”
“You know how to fight.”
“Yes.”
“So fight Grandpa.”
Daniel looked at the bruising beneath his son’s eye.
“That’s what he wants.”
“Why?”
“Because if I hurt him, people stop looking at what he did to you and start looking at what I did to him.”
Toby considered this.
“You could hit him only a little.”
Despite everything, Daniel almost smiled.
“I’m not very good at only a little.”
Toby lowered the backpack.
“Did you hit people a lot?”
“Yes.”
“Did it make things better?”
“Sometimes for a few minutes.”
“And then?”
“Then they got worse.”
Toby sat beside him in the hallway.
Daniel did not touch him.
After a while, Toby leaned against his shoulder.
“I still want you to fight him,” the boy whispered.
“I know.”
Rebecca called that evening.
“Federal prosecutors are interested in the ledger,” she said. “They’re also interested in you.”
“That was fast.”
“People move quickly when congressional names are mentioned.”
“Can they protect Toby?”
“They can coordinate. They cannot guarantee safety.”
“What do they want?”
“A proffer interview. You tell them what you know under an agreement that limits how your statements may be used, subject to exceptions.”
Daniel rubbed his eyes.
“Speak English.”
“You talk. They listen. If you lie, the protection collapses. If you tell the truth, they decide whether you’re useful enough to negotiate with.”
“And the box?”
“We open it with agents present.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Victor will know.”
“He may already know.”
Daniel looked through the living room window. A dark SUV sat across the street.
It had been there for eleven minutes.
“Rebecca.”
“What?”
“I’m being watched.”
“Describe the vehicle.”
He did.
“Do not go outside.”
The SUV pulled away before police arrived.
Its license plate belonged to a landscaping company whose truck had been reported stolen that morning.
At nine the next day, Daniel entered the bank with Rebecca, two federal agents, a forensic evidence technician, and a bank officer who looked offended by everyone.
Elias waited across the street in a coffee shop.
Daniel had told him not to come.
He came anyway.
The safe-deposit vault smelled of metal and old air. Cameras covered the entrance but not the private viewing rooms. The bank officer used one key. Rebecca used Nora’s brass key.
Box 417 slid from the wall.
Daniel stared at the number.
April seventeenth.
The bank officer carried it into a private room and left.
May you like
The evidence technician began recording.
Rebecca said, “Daniel, confirm that you have not opened this box before.”
