Chương 5
“Vanessa came in.”
The answer was simple.
Daniel waited.
Emma drew one blue line across the paper.
“She told Claire the kitchen sink was leaking.”
“Was it?”
Emma shrugged.
“No.”
Rachel whispered something that sounded like a curse.
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Emma’s chin lifted.
“I did.”
“When?”
“You said Claire was probably talking about the vitamins.”
Daniel stopped moving.
The memory arrived.
Emma in the library doorway.
Daniel irritated because he had been trying to read a report and the words would not stay still.
Claire says the bottles are different.
Vanessa had been behind Emma carrying tea.
They are different, she had said. Morning and evening.
Daniel had nodded.
Of course they are.
He had told Emma to go finish homework.
He looked across the room at his daughter.
“You did tell me.”
Emma said nothing.
“I’m sorry.”
She returned to her drawing.
Daniel almost repeated himself.
Then he understood that apologies did not become larger by being said twice.
The police did not arrest Vanessa that day.
Or the next.
This confused Emma.
Daniel tried to explain that suspicion and proof were different things.
She listened with the solemn attention children sometimes gave explanations they did not accept.
“If she did it, why can’t they just know?”
“Because knowing isn’t the same as proving.”
“But we saw it.”
“You saw part of it.”
Emma frowned.
“I saw enough.”
Daniel looked at her.
“So did I.”
He was discharged on the third day with instructions he followed more carefully than he had ever followed any instruction in his life.
Rachel moved into the guest suite at the mansion temporarily.
Vanessa did not return.
Her attorney arranged for clothes and personal items to be collected by a third party.
Daniel insisted on being home during the collection.
Detective Greene advised against contact.
So Daniel stayed in the library while two bonded movers carried boxes from the primary bedroom.
He heard drawers opening upstairs.
Closet doors sliding.
Footsteps.
Ordinary sounds.
Once he heard the faint clink of hangers and remembered Vanessa complaining that the closet rods had been installed half an inch too low.
The memory had nothing to do with what happened.
It hurt anyway.
Emma sat on the floor near his chair reading a graphic novel.
After twenty minutes she asked, “Is she taking the red dress?”
Daniel looked down.
“What?”
“The one she was wearing.”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t like it.”
“The dress didn’t do anything.”
Emma considered this.
“That’s true.”
She returned to her book.
Daniel almost smiled.
When the movers left, the house did not feel safer.
It felt emptier.
That was worse in its own way.
For the first few nights Daniel slept badly.
He kept waking at two or three in the morning and checking the bottle on his bedside table.
A home health nurse organized his medications now.
Every bottle stayed in the pharmacy container.
Daniel photographed each label.
He hated himself for doing it.
He did it anyway.
On the fourth morning, Rachel found him staring at the sealed cup of coffee the nurse had brought.
“Do you want me to taste it?”
Daniel looked at her.
“That’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
They sat in silence.
Finally Daniel opened the lid himself.
The coffee was bad.
That made him feel absurdly better.
Nobody trying to control his life, he thought, would make coffee this bad on purpose.
He drank half of it.
Claire had not returned to work.
She had given a full statement to police and then stayed with a friend.
Daniel called her once.
She did not answer.
He left no voicemail.
Rachel said, “Maybe she thinks you’re angry.”
“I am angry.”
“At her?”
Daniel did not answer.
Rachel crossed her arms.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I paid her to work in my house.”
“She was twenty-four when Vanessa hired her.”
“She’s twenty-five.”
“Thank you for correcting the least important part.”
Daniel moved his chair toward the window.
A landscaping crew was trimming the hedges outside. The low vibration of machinery came faintly through the glass.
“I trusted Claire around Emma.”
“Did she hurt Emma?”
“She helped Vanessa hide what was happening.”
Rachel sat on the edge of the desk.
“Did she know what was happening?”
“She knew something was wrong.”
“So did you.”
Daniel looked at her.
“That’s unfair.”
Rachel nodded.
“Yes.”
He had expected her to argue.
She continued, “It can still be true.”
That evening, Claire called back.
Daniel answered immediately.
“Claire.”
“Mr. Carter.”
Her voice was so soft he had to turn up the phone.
“I’m sorry I missed you.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
Silence.
Daniel almost filled it.
He stopped himself.
Claire said, “Detective Greene told me I could talk to you, but I shouldn’t talk about certain details.”
“That’s fine.”
“I wanted to ask about Emma.”
“She’s okay.”
Another silence.
“No,” Daniel said. “She isn’t. But she’s safe.”
Claire exhaled.
“I’m sorry.”
Daniel looked at the bottles on his desk.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The question came out harsher than he intended.
Claire did not answer immediately.
“You were sick.”
“I was still capable of understanding English.”
“I know.”
“So?”
She breathed in.
“I tried.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Emma told me.”
“I should’ve tried harder.”
“Yes.”
The answer left his mouth before kindness could soften it.
Claire was quiet.
Daniel hated himself for the small relief he felt after saying it.
Then Claire surprised him.
“So should you have.”
He opened his eyes.
“What?”
“You asked me.”
“I know what I asked.”
“You want to know why I didn’t tell you. I was scared of losing my job. I was scared Mrs. Carter would say I stole something or messed with your medicine. She already told me once that nobody in this kind of work gets hired after being accused of stealing from a family.”
Daniel gripped the armrest.
“She threatened you?”
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“She said it like advice.”
That sounded exactly like Vanessa.
