Chương 4
A faint red mark remained on her left cheek.
Her posture was perfect.
Emily saw her and moved behind Rachel.
Margaret noticed.
Rachel watched the hurt cross her face.
Real hurt.
That complicated everything.
For a fraction of a second Margaret did not look wealthy or frightening.
She looked old.
Not sixty-three.
Older.
A woman whose granddaughter had chosen another body to hide behind.
Then her expression closed.
“You’ve poisoned her against me already.”
Rachel almost answered.
Denise touched her elbow.
“Not here.”
Margaret stood.
“No, I’d like an answer.”
Officer Greene stepped into the hall.
“Mrs. Vale.”
“She’s my granddaughter.”
“And right now we’re keeping the parties separate.”
“I am not a party.”
The officer looked tired.
“You are literally one of the parties.”
Under any other circumstance, Rachel might have laughed.
Instead she felt Emily press closer to her back.
Margaret looked down at the child.
“Emily.”
Emily did not answer.
“I love you.”
Emily whispered, “Okay.”
Margaret flinched.
Rachel felt it without enjoying it.
That frightened her too.
She had wanted Margaret stopped.
She had not wanted her destroyed.
Those were not the same thing.
By one in the morning, the train was moving again.
Margaret had been relocated to a vacant roomette in the forward sleeper. Rachel and the children remained in their original compartment with a staff instruction that Margaret was not to enter without Rachel’s permission.
Noah finally slept.
Emily did not.
She lay on the lower berth in Rachel’s T-shirt because raspberry sauce had stained the cream dress. Rachel washed the cardigan in the tiny sink and hung it from a brass hook to dry.
The navy carrier sat on the floor.
Emily stared at it.
Rachel moved it into the closet.
“Better?”
Emily nodded.
Rachel sat beside her.
For a while neither spoke.
A crossing bell sounded far away, then vanished behind them.
Emily traced a seam in the blanket.
“Are we still going home?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow?”
“We’re getting off in Chicago.”
“But Grandma said—”
“Grandma lied.”
Emily absorbed that.
Rachel hated how relieved she looked.
“Did I do something that made her think she could keep me?”
“No.”
“Did Dad tell her she could?”
The question came so quietly Rachel almost missed it.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
Rachel’s first instinct was to say yes immediately.
That was what mothers were supposed to do.
Make the ground solid.
But Daniel had died without a will Rachel considered complete, leaving old beneficiary documents, a jointly owned house, a life insurance policy, and a family trust whose language Rachel still did not fully understand.
Margaret had been included in financial decisions long before Rachel married him.
There were documents Rachel had not read carefully enough.
The six pages she had photographed before dinner sat in her phone now, transmitted to Naomi Chen, the attorney Rachel had met exactly twice.
Rachel thought of Margaret saying, It’s only temporary authority, sweetheart. It makes things easier if something happens.
She had almost signed.
Her stomach turned.
“No,” Rachel said. “Dad never told me anything like that.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Rachel looked at her daughter.
Emily’s eyes were swollen with exhaustion.
Rachel inhaled.
“You’re right.”
Emily waited.
“I’m sure he never told me that. I’m also going to check every paper. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I should’ve checked sooner.”
Emily shrugged.
That small shrug hurt more than accusation would have.
“Did Grandma ever talk to you about living with her before tonight?”
Emily stared at the blanket.
“Sometimes.”
Rachel kept her voice even.
“What did she say?”
“That her school district is better.”
Anything else?”
“She has a pool.”
Despite everything, Rachel almost smiled.
Margaret did have a pool.
Emily hated swimming in it because the water was always cold.
“She said you’re tired.”
Rachel’s smile disappeared.
“Did she say what that had to do with you living there?”
“She said tired people make bad choices.”
Rachel rested her hands in her lap.
“What choices?”
Emily shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Did she ever tell you not to tell me something?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Rachel swallowed.
“What?”
“That she gave me Dad’s watch.”
Rachel stared at her.
“What watch?”
“The brown one.”
Daniel’s old leather-strapped Hamilton.
Not especially expensive.
Almost worthless compared with the watches Margaret kept in a safe.
Daniel had worn it every day for twelve years.
Rachel had searched their house for it after the funeral.
Margaret had said she didn’t know where it was.
“When did she give it to you?”
“My birthday.”
Emily had turned nine three months earlier.
“Where is it?”
“At home.”
“Where?”
“In my desk.”
Rachel stood, then sat again because there was nowhere to go.
The house was hundreds of miles away.
The train kept moving.
“Why did she tell you not to tell me?”
“She said you’d get emotional.”
Rachel laughed once.
It came out wrong.
Emily looked worried.
“Sorry,” Rachel said.
“She said it belonged to Dad’s family.”
“It belonged to Dad.”
“Isn’t that his family?”
“Yes.”
Emily frowned.
Rachel rubbed her forehead.
“Yes, it is.”
“Then why are you mad?”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“I know.”
Rachel looked at her.
Emily pulled the blanket higher.
“I’m tired.”
“Okay.”
Rachel turned off the lamp.
Five minutes later Emily said into the dark, “Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you mean it?”
“What?”
“When you hit her.”
Rachel lay still.
“That she can’t touch me?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Another minute passed.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t hit her again.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
“I won’t.”
The promise frightened her because she understood exactly why Emily had asked.
The slap had protected her.
The slap had also scared her.
Both things were true.
At two seventeen, Rachel’s phone buzzed.
Naomi Chen had replied.
DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING.
A second message followed.
I’m reading the document now. Call me when the kids are asleep.
May you like
Rachel stepped into the corridor.
The train lights were dimmed. Brass fixtures reflected in the windows. Somewhere farther down the car, a man snored loudly enough to be heard through his door.
