Chương 7
“Sorry.”
Emma rubbed her eyes.
“Is it locked?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop.”
Rachel almost laughed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She tucked the blanket near Emma’s feet.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Uncle Derek used to be funny.”
Rachel sat on the edge of the bed.
“He did.”
“Was he pretending?”
Rachel looked at the faint glow from the hallway night-light.
“No.”
Emma frowned.
“How do you know?”
“Because people can do bad things without every good thing about them being fake.”
Emma considered that.
“That’s confusing.”
“It is.”
“I don’t like that.”
“Me neither.”
Emma lay down.
Rachel brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead.
“Can Aunt Laura still come to my birthday?”
Rachel’s chest tightened.
“If she wants to.”
“She didn’t do it.”
“No.”
“People are being weird to her.”
Rachel looked at her daughter.
“What people?”
“Grandma didn’t answer her at the store.”
Rachel made a note to ask Michael about that.
“Sometimes adults get angry and put it in the wrong place.”
“That’s dumb too.”
“There are a lot of dumb adult things.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“Maybe you should fix them.”
Rachel kissed her forehead.
“Working on it.”
She did not sleep much.
Derek was released pending further proceedings under conditions Rachel understood only generally and did not want to memorize.
He was ordered not to contact her or Emma.
That part she memorized.
He moved out of the house he shared with Laura and stayed with a friend.
Laura filed for separation eleven days after the barbecue.
That news arrived through Michael, and Rachel’s first reaction was irritation.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because Emma asked about her.”
“That doesn’t mean I need updates on Laura’s marriage.”
Michael leaned against Rachel’s kitchen counter.
He had stopped coming in without asking.
That change was so small neither of them discussed it.
“She’s struggling.”
“I know.”
“She thinks you hate her.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Why would I hate Laura?”
“Because she didn’t tell anyone about the car.”
“She remembered at the barbecue.”
“She remembered before that.”
Rachel went still.
Michael rubbed his jaw.
“She told me yesterday that she woke up when Derek came home that night. He said he’d gone to a twenty-four-hour pharmacy.”
“Did she know that was a lie?”
“Not then.”
“Then what are we talking about?”
“She found a broken plastic clip in the passenger footwell the next morning. She thought it was weird. Derek told her it was from a tool case.”
Rachel waited.
“And?”
“It matched part of the cover on the hard drive.”
Rachel felt her pulse in her throat.
“She knew that?”
“Not until the police showed her a photo later.”
“That is not the same as hiding something.”
“I know.”
“Does she think it is?”
Michael nodded.
Rachel looked away.
There were too many different kinds of guilt in the world.
Some belonged to the person carrying them.
Some had been handed over by somebody else.
She went to see Laura the following Saturday.
Not because Michael asked.
She told herself that twice on the drive.
Laura was staying with her sister in a townhouse complex near the interstate.
The landscaping consisted of three struggling shrubs and a decorative rock bed full of cigarette butts.
Rachel almost left after parking.
Then Laura came outside.
She had two coffee cups.
“I guessed.”
Rachel took one.
“What if I’d stopped drinking coffee?”
Laura looked at her.
“You haven’t changed that much.”
They sat on the concrete steps.
Traffic hissed beyond the sound barrier.
For several minutes they talked about nothing.
Laura’s sister’s dishwasher leaked.
Emma’s camp ended the following week.
Michael had apparently grown a terrible tomato plant.
Then Laura said, “I should have known.”
Rachel looked at her coffee.
“Probably.”
Laura blinked.
Rachel continued.
“You knew Derek better than I did. You knew when he lied about little things. You knew when he was anxious. You probably knew there were parts of him you didn’t want to look at.”
Laura stared ahead.
Rachel took a sip.
“And that still doesn’t mean you should have known he would break into our garage.”
Laura swallowed.
“I thought you were going to tell me it wasn’t my fault.”
“I don’t think that would help.”
A tiny smile appeared and disappeared.
“No.”
Rachel watched a delivery van miss the turn and reverse awkwardly while another car honked at it.
“My marriage was bad for a year before I admitted it was bad,” she said.
Laura looked at her.
“I had explanations for everything. Michael was tired. I was controlling. Work was bad. Emma was having trouble at school. We were busy. We needed a vacation.”
She rubbed the cardboard seam on her cup.
“Some of those things were true.”
“What changed?”
“I got tired of needing twelve explanations for one problem.”
Laura nodded slowly.
“Derek always had explanations.”
“I know.”
“He still does.”
Rachel looked at her.
“Are you talking to him?”
“Only through lawyers. Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
Laura winced.
“He called from another number.”
Rachel’s posture changed.
“Did he ask about us?”
“No.”
“What did he want?”
Laura looked down.
“He wanted me to say the hard drive had always been in our garage.”
Rachel stared at her.
Laura’s eyes filled, but she did not cry.
“He said if I did that, everything could stay contained. He said Michael would lose the company. His employees would lose their jobs. Their mother would lose the money she put into the business years ago. He said one sentence from me could stop a whole family from going under.”
“What did you say?”
“I hung up.”
Rachel exhaled.
“Tell Bell.”
“I did.”
They sat quietly.
Then Laura said, “He almost made it sound reasonable.”
“That’s what he’s good at.”
“I loved that about him.”
“I know.”
“He could make any bad day smaller.”
Rachel looked at her.
Laura gave a tired shrug.
“Turns out he could make other things smaller too.”
The financial investigation moved more slowly than the family’s fear.
May you like
Weeks passed.
The company stayed open under temporary controls arranged with its accountant and attorney. Michael removed Derek’s access to business systems and spent evenings reconstructing records.
