Chương 4
“That is not how this works.”
Curtis looked almost tired.
“We can argue about it somewhere else.”
Daniel wanted to ask him everything.
Carver stopped him before he started.
“No more discussion here.”
Curtis nodded.
He walked toward the hotel doors.
Michael said, “You’ll regret that.”
Curtis paused.
For several seconds he stared at the rain beyond the glass.
Then he turned.
“No,” he said. “I’ve regretted enough things already.”
He left.
Daniel watched him disappear into the storm.
A second child.
Maybe.
Or maybe Curtis had meant something else.
Daniel’s mind lunged toward conclusions.
He forced it back.
Emma needed him to stop being a lawyer.
For once in his life, he needed to be her father first.
They rode to St. Anne’s in Victoria’s car because Daniel had arrived with Michael’s driver.
That fact disgusted him now too.
Emma sat in the back with Daniel.
Victoria drove.
No one spoke for several minutes.
Rain blurred the city into red lights and silver pavement.
Emma rested her injured hand on her lap.
Daniel stared at it until she noticed.
“You can stop.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You keep looking.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t hurt right now.”
He nodded.
Then, because he had spent years responding to information with solutions, he said, “We’ll get it fixed.”
Emma turned toward the window.
Daniel shut his eyes.
Victoria glanced at him in the mirror.
He knew what she was thinking.
Not everything could be fixed.
Certainly not by him.
At the hospital, a pediatric nurse examined Emma first. Carver had called ahead. A social worker named Natalie Cho joined them.
Daniel hated how practiced everyone seemed.
He hated himself for hating it.
Practice meant children came here like this all the time.
Emma answered questions slowly.
What happened Tuesday?
Where were you?
Who was with you?
Did someone touch you?
Did someone grab you?
Did someone tell you what to say?
When Emma became quiet, Natalie did not push.
She asked whether Emma wanted apple juice.
Emma said orange.
The nurse brought orange.
Daniel sat in a plastic chair beneath a television playing a muted cooking competition.
He had never felt more useless.
Victoria waited outside.
At one point, Emma asked him to leave the room.
That was the moment he nearly broke.
He said, “Of course,” and stood.
His legs felt weak.
In the hallway, Victoria handed him coffee from a vending machine.
“It’s terrible.”
He drank it anyway.
“You don’t have to stay.”
“I know.”
“Your name is going to be attached to this.”
“I know.”
“Clients will call.”
“I know.”
“You may lose work.”
Victoria looked at him.
“Daniel.”
He looked down.
“You’re trying to make me leave before I can choose to.”
He almost denied it.
Then he didn’t.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because everybody eventually decides there’s too much damage around me.”
Victoria’s expression changed.
It was not sympathy.
She hated when he turned self-pity into analysis.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Make this about people abandoning you.”
He stared at the vending machine.
A coil inside held a bag of pretzels at an angle.
Sarah used to kick machines like that.
Not hard.
Just enough to intimidate them, she claimed.
He pressed his forehead against the cool glass.
“I told Emma she didn’t understand what she was saying.”
“When?”
“Tuesday.”
Victoria went still.
Daniel told her.
Not everything.
There was no everything yet.
But enough.
Emma had tried to tell him in the car after the urgent-care visit that Michael had been angry with someone in the garage. She said Michael grabbed her wrist when she tried to take a picture. Daniel was exhausted, embarrassed about missing the injury, and already under pressure because the foundation’s largest donor was threatening to withdraw over rumors about Michael.
He asked Emma whether she was sure he grabbed her.
She said yes.
He asked whether she might have startled him.
She said maybe.
He asked whether she had been somewhere she was told not to go.
She said yes.
And Daniel, hearing disobedience because it was easier than hearing danger, said, “Then you don’t get to turn this into something else because you got scared.”
Victoria did not interrupt.
That was worse.
“I thought she was embarrassed.”
“You thought what was useful.”
Daniel looked at her.
She did not soften it.
“So did I,” she said. “About the allegations.”
He remembered her television appearance.
Michael Grant has spent thirty years supporting families and children across this city. Anonymous claims without evidence should not erase a lifetime of service.
She had said it perfectly.
He had texted afterward: Strong.
Michael had texted: Grateful.
Now Victoria looked sick.
“What were the allegations actually about?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You represented him.”
“I represented the foundation.”
“Don’t.”
She flinched.
He regretted the word.
She folded her arms.
“The first complaint came from a former administrative assistant. She said Michael used foundation money to pay a settlement.”
“For what?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Why?”
“She was under an NDA. Or claimed she was.”
“And the second?”
“Anonymous email. Said the foundation covered up incidents involving families receiving grants.”
“Incidents.”
“That was the word.”
Daniel felt his pulse in his throat.
“You never told me.”
“You never asked.”
“I defended him.”
“So did I.”
Daniel turned away.
On the far wall, a child’s drawing of a giraffe had been taped beside a hand-sanitizer dispenser.
Yellow marker.
Purple spots.
One crooked leg.
It was unbearable.
Victoria said quietly, “I thought somebody was trying to damage him before the gala.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what Michael told me.”
Daniel laughed once.
No humor.
“Apparently that was enough for both of us.”
The examination lasted almost an hour.
When Emma came out, she looked exhausted.
Daniel stood.
Natalie asked to speak with him privately.
Emma went with Victoria to a vending area.
The doctor joined them.
May you like
“The wrist injury is consistent with forceful gripping,” she said. “That doesn’t establish who caused it. But it does not look like a simple fall.”
Daniel nodded.
