Chương 7
Instead, he learned to support June’s head.
At night, Nora sometimes watched the clock during his visits. She pictured him holding their daughter beneath fluorescent lights while a stranger took notes. The image hurt in more than one direction.
Three weeks after the birth, Ethan came to the house with a sheriff’s deputy to collect clothing and personal belongings under an agreed order.
Nora waited upstairs with June. Marianne stood in the hallway. The deputy wore a body camera and spoke politely to everyone, which made the situation feel more humiliating.
Ethan was allowed forty-five minutes.
He packed suits, shoes, watches, toiletries, and the framed photograph of himself beside the prototype automobile. He left their wedding photograph on the dresser.
From the nursery, Nora heard drawers opening and closing.
Then silence.
She stepped into the hallway.
Ethan stood beneath the ultrasound photographs.
He looked thinner. His shirt collar was too loose, and there was a grayness beneath his eyes that had not been there in Bermuda.
“You shouldn’t be up here,” Nora said.
“My clothes are up here.”
“The order says bedroom and office.”
“The nursery is between them.”
Marianne appeared at the foot of the stairs. “Ethan.”
He ignored her.
“How is June?”
“You get reports.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“She has reflux. She hates the blue pacifier. She sleeps better when the dishwasher is running.”
His face changed at the details.
“Can I see her?”
“Not today.”
“I’m already here.”
“That doesn’t change the order.”
He looked toward the bedroom, where June was asleep behind a closed door.
“I missed her birth.”
Nora waited.
“I know that was my fault,” he said.
It was the first time he had admitted even that much.
She folded her arms, then unfolded them because the posture pulled at her healing abdomen.
“Why did you go?”
“I told you. Investors.”
“Why did Diane go?”
“She made the introductions.”
“Why did you lie about it?”
He glanced at Marianne.
“Can we not do this with your attorney standing there?”
“She stays.”
“She has always stayed. Your father died and left her in charge of whether you trust anyone.”
Marianne did not react.
Nora said, “Why did you lie?”
Ethan pushed his hands into his pockets.
“The investor wouldn’t meet in the United States. He was only on the island for three days. If the deal closed, it would have covered payroll and the loan payment.”
“So you knew the company was in danger.”
“I knew it needed bridge capital.”
“You told me it was stronger than ever.”
“Because you were pregnant. Because every time I talked about cash flow, you looked terrified.”
“I looked terrified because you lied.”
“You looked terrified before I finished sentences.”
The deputy appeared at the far end of the hallway.
“Ten minutes, Mr. Mercer.”
Ethan nodded.
Nora lowered her voice. “Did you sign my name?”
“No.”
“Did Diane?”
His eyes moved toward the mirror.
That movement was small, but Nora saw it.
“Ask your lawyer,” he said.
“I’m asking you.”
“I did what I had to do to protect the company.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re going to understand right now.”
He turned toward the stairs.
Nora felt the old impulse to call him back, to soften the last moment so neither of them had to carry it. For six years, she had repaired conversations after he broke them. A touch on the shoulder. A text from the next room. Coffee placed beside his computer.
She let him leave.
At the front door, he stopped beside the cream suitcase. The airline had returned it to the house after Diane’s assistant arranged shipment. It stood unopened against the wall, still tagged for Bermuda.
Ethan looked at it.
“Throw that away,” he said.
“It’s yours.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Neither do I.”
The deputy cleared his throat.
Ethan took the suitcase.
After the door closed, Marianne leaned against the wall.
“He looked toward the mirror when you asked about Diane.”
“I saw.”
“That is not proof.”
“I know.”
Nora looked at the empty space beside the door.
For once, knowing something was not proof did not make her doubt herself.
Leonard traced DMC Advisory through banking records produced under subpoena in the civil case. The company had received nine hundred thousand dollars from Aurelian over two years for strategic consulting.
Diane had reported none of the income to Aurelian’s board because, according to her attorney, DMC was not hers. It belonged to a longtime household employee named Margaret Cole.
Margaret was seventy-four and had worked for Diane since Ethan was a child.
When investigators contacted her, she said she had never heard of DMC Advisory.
The company had been created using a copy of her driver’s license.
Diane’s attorney called it an administrative misunderstanding.
The phrase made Leonard remove his glasses and clean them for a long time.
“She used her housekeeper’s identity?” Nora asked.
“Possibly,” he said.
“Why?”
“To receive money without her name appearing as the recipient.”
“What did she do with it?”
“Mortgage payments. Club dues. Personal expenses. And approximately three hundred thousand dollars transferred back to Ethan.”
Marianne sat across from Nora at the dining table, surrounded by financial diagrams and printed statements.
“It creates a circular flow,” she said. “Aurelian pays Diane through DMC. Diane transfers money to Ethan. Ethan represents some of it as personal investment.”
“So he made company money look like his own?”
“That appears to be part of it.”
Nora picked up a statement, then set it down.
“Why would he need to look like he invested his own money?”
“To reassure lenders. To meet investor conditions. To maintain control.”
The baby monitor beside Marianne’s elbow made a soft crackle. Everyone stopped talking until June settled.
Nora whispered, “Did my money pay Diane?”
Leonard looked uncomfortable.
“Indirectly, some of it may have.”
May you like
Nora stood and walked to the windows.
Outside, sailboats leaned across the bay. Her grandmother used to identify families by their boats rather than their houses. The yellow one belonged to the dentist who cheated at cards. The blue one belonged to the woman who returned every Christmas gift.
