Chương 4
Maxwell stood beside Dana holding a packet of forms thick enough to acquire a company.
Before leaving, Lucy turned.
“Grandma had a blue bag.”
Dana lifted it from beside the chair.
“I have it.”
“Not you.” Lucy pointed at Maxwell. “Him.”
Dana’s eyebrows rose.
Maxwell took the faded blue canvas bag.
It was lighter than he expected.
“What’s in it?” he asked.
“Stuff Grandma wanted you to have.”
Lucy looked at his black suit, his polished shoes, the gold watch half hidden beneath his cuff.
“She said not to let your people take it.”
Then she followed Lily and the Harrisons into the elevator.
Maxwell returned to Elizabeth’s room after the staff had removed the IV tubing but before they took her body away. The cream blanket had been pulled neatly to her chest. Someone had combed her thin brown hair away from her face.
He placed the blue bag on the chair.
For several minutes, he stood beside the bed without touching anything. He did not pray. He had not prayed since his father’s funeral. He did not apologize aloud because Elizabeth could no longer tell him that apologies were not answers.
Inside the bag were three paperbacks, a pair of reading glasses, a phone charger, a child’s red hair ribbon, and an envelope bearing his name.
The handwriting belonged to Elizabeth. He recognized the backward slant of the M even after three decades.
He opened the envelope.
Maxwell,
If I am still alive when you read this, give it back and ask me the questions yourself. If I am not, do not turn me into a better person because I died. I was afraid. Sometimes I was selfish. I lied to Nora longer than I should have. I kept the money. I also tried to reach you, and the people around you made fear feel reasonable.
The girls are not a debt. They are not evidence against your mother. They are not a second chance with Nora. They are Lucy and Lily.
Lucy watches promises. Lily listens for anger. Neither of them needs to be rescued by a stranger who expects gratitude.
You will be tempted to fix everything quickly. Don’t.
He stopped reading.
The room’s ventilation whispered overhead. Down the hall, a cart rolled across a seam in the floor and rattled twice.
He folded the letter along its existing crease and placed it back inside the envelope.
At one thirty in the morning, he called his chief of staff.
Adrian Cole answered on the second ring.
“Maxwell?”
“I need my schedule cleared.”
“For tomorrow?”
“For the week.”
There was a pause.
“You have the Singapore call at six. The board committee at nine. The governor’s office—”
“Clear it.”
“Are you ill?”
“No.”
“Has something happened?”
Maxwell looked at Elizabeth’s still face.
“I had a daughter.”
Adrian said nothing.
“She died five months ago,” Maxwell continued. “She left two children.”
Another silence followed, longer than the first.
“Are you certain?”
“No.”
It was the most honest answer available.
Adrian exhaled.
“Where are you?”
“North Sound Private.”
“I’ll come.”
“Come alone.”
Maxwell ended the call before Adrian could ask why.
At three twelve, Elizabeth’s body was taken from the room. Maxwell walked beside the covered stretcher until an orderly stopped him at a secure door. He stood there after the elevator closed.
Adrian arrived wearing jeans, a navy sweater, and loafers without socks. Maxwell had seen him in casual clothing only twice in sixteen years.
“What do you need?” Adrian asked.
Maxwell handed him Elizabeth’s letter.
Adrian read it slowly. His face remained controlled, but a muscle moved near his left eye when he reached the reference to “your people.”
“Did anyone in my office ever receive correspondence from Nora Winters?” Maxwell asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
“Quietly?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want legal involved?”
“Claire only.”
Adrian folded the letter.
“We need to consider whether this is an extortion setup.”
Maxwell looked at him.
Adrian held his gaze.
“You pay me to say the ugly thing before someone else does.”
“She’s dead.”
“That doesn’t mean no one else benefits.”
“There are children.”
“That makes the situation more sensitive, not less.”
Maxwell took back the letter.
“Elizabeth said Nora tried to contact me.”
“We’ll check.”
“Don’t have one of your assistants check. You check.”
Adrian’s expression tightened.
“All right.”
“And find out where my mother was in August of 1996.”
“That may take more than a phone call.”
“You have the week.”
By dawn, Maxwell had completed the initial guardianship inquiry, consented to a voluntary DNA test, and sent Claire Donnelly, his personal attorney, a photograph of every page Dana had given him.
He drove himself home because he did not want his driver asking why they had spent the night at a hospital. The security detail followed in another vehicle.
His house occupied a wooded bluff above Lake Washington. He had purchased it twelve years earlier because the previous owner had installed a private dock and because the western windows caught the city lights. It contained six bedrooms. Five were unused.
At six forty, Maxwell entered the kitchen and discovered that the refrigerator held mineral water, mustard, half a lemon, and several glass containers labeled by his house manager.
He opened one. Lentil soup.
He stood at the counter eating it cold because heating it felt like an unnecessary step.
At seven, his mother called.
He watched her name appear on the screen.
Evelyn Rothschild rarely called before nine. She preferred messages delivered through assistants unless she considered the subject personal or dangerous.
Maxwell let the phone ring until it stopped.
Thirty seconds later, it rang again.
He answered.
“Where are you?” Evelyn asked.
“Home.”
“You canceled the board committee.”
“Yes.”
“Adrian told Martin there was a family emergency.”
Maxwell set down the spoon.
“Did you know Nora Winters?”
Nothing moved in the kitchen except the second hand of the wall clock.
May you like
His mother’s silence lasted perhaps two seconds. It was enough.
“Who has been speaking to you?” she asked.
