Chương 4
“She pulled her arm away from me.”
“I understand what you’re saying.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Ortiz did not react.
Grace immediately regretted the sharpness.
The detective waited.
That made Grace continue.
“She watched me fall.”
Ortiz nodded once.
“We’re treating it seriously.”
That sentence, Grace discovered, was not comforting.
At three in the morning, Evelyn’s attorney called Nathan.
Nathan did not answer.
At three-oh-seven, the attorney texted.
At three-twelve, Blackwood Development’s board chairman called.
Nathan stared at the screen until the call stopped.
Grace said, “You should answer.”
“No.”
“It’s your company.”
“It’s three in the morning.”
“That has never stopped any of you before.”
He looked at her.
There it was again: the small flare of irritation they had lived inside for years.
Grace almost welcomed it.
Normal marital resentment was easier to understand than attempted murder.
Nathan put the phone face down.
“Sleep.”
“You sleep.”
“I’m not the one hooked to a fetal monitor.”
“You dislocated your shoulder.”
“Partially.”
“Oh, good. Barely injured, then.”
He smiled despite himself.
Grace closed her eyes.
This time he did not tell her to open them.
She woke at six to find him sitting in the chair beside her bed, asleep with his chin against his chest.
His phone was in his hand.
The screen displayed twelve missed calls.
The baby’s heartbeat pulsed steadily from the monitor.
Grace watched Nathan sleep.
For years she had thought love would eventually become less frightening if they became good enough at it.
It had not.
Love had only accumulated more things to lose.
They were discharged shortly after noon.
Two officers had already returned to the Blackwood house with a warrant by then.
Nathan refused to go there.
That surprised Grace.
His family had owned the mansion for thirty-eight years. Nathan had learned to swim in the pool. He had broken his wrist on the back stairs when he was nine. His father’s study still smelled faintly of cedar because Thomas Blackwood had stored cigars in a cabinet there even after his cardiologist made him stop smoking.
Nathan had spent his life moving through the house as though it belonged to him.
After the fall, he would not cross the driveway.
They went home instead.
Their house was twenty minutes away and much smaller, which still meant larger than Grace had ever imagined owning when she was a child.
The first thing she noticed when they entered was a banana on the kitchen counter.
It had gone brown.
She had meant to eat it before they left the previous evening.
She stood looking at it until Nathan said, “What?”
“The banana.”
He looked at the counter.
“What about it?”
“I don’t know.”
He put their hospital bag down.
Grace began to laugh.
It hurt almost immediately, but she kept laughing.
Nathan joined her, then grabbed his shoulder.
“Stop making me laugh.”
“You started.”
“I absolutely did not.”
“You looked at the banana.”
“That is not starting anything.”
Grace leaned against the counter.
The laugh turned into tears so quickly she did not have time to hide them.
Nathan’s expression changed.
He came toward her.
Grace stepped into him carefully, avoiding the sling.
For a while neither spoke.
Then Nathan said into her hair, “I should have caught it.”
She pulled back.
“What?”
“That something was wrong with the invitation.”
“Nathan.”
“My mother never gives me anything from my father without lawyers.”
“You were a little distracted yesterday.”
“That isn’t an excuse.”
“You caught me.”
“After she dropped you.”
“You caught me.”
His face twisted.
Grace touched his cheek.
“You don’t get to turn this into something you failed to prevent.”
“I brought her into our lives.”
“She was already in your life.”
“I kept her there.”
Grace lowered her hand.
“That part we can talk about.”
He nodded.
Neither pretended they had resolved it.
By evening, the story was online.
The first article contained almost nothing accurate.
HEIRESS IN HORROR BALCONY FALL AT BLACKWOOD ESTATE, the headline said, though Grace was not an heiress and the house was not technically an estate.
The article described a “family gathering” that had never happened.
It said Grace had “lost her balance.”
It quoted an unnamed source saying the railing had “long been scheduled for repair.”
There was no mention of Evelyn’s arrest because Evelyn had not been arrested.
That became the first thing strangers found suspicious.
The second article was worse.
It appeared two hours later on a financial gossip site that specialized in executives, inherited fortunes, divorces, and the occasional private-plane scandal.
Its headline did not mention the fall.
It mentioned the baby.
BLACKWOOD HEIR FACES PATERNITY CRISIS AFTER WIFE’S ACCIDENT.
Grace read the headline twice.
Nathan took the phone from her hand.
“No.”
“Give it back.”
“No.”
“Nathan.”
“You don’t need this.”
“Give me my phone.”
He did.
That mattered too.
Grace opened the article.
There were no laboratory results. No names. No medical details.
Only a sentence attributed to “a person familiar with the family” claiming there were “serious private questions regarding the paternity of the Millers’ unborn child.”
Grace sat at the kitchen table.
Nathan read over her shoulder.
His face went pale.
“Your mother.”
“Maybe.”
“Who else?”
He said nothing.
Grace looked at him.
“Nathan.”
“I told someone.”
The room changed.
She placed the phone on the table.
“Who?”
“Robert.”
“Robert who?”
“Robert Vale.”
“The board chairman?”
“Yes.”
Grace waited.
Nathan looked toward the window.
“I called him yesterday afternoon.”
“After I told you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His answer came too slowly.
“Because Dad’s trust has provisions related to family succession.”
Grace stared at him.
“You called your board chairman about my uterus?”
“No.”
“That is what you did.”
“I called him because I needed to understand whether anything changed.”
“Anything?”
“Grace.”
“What changed, Nathan?”
“My legal obligations. The company structure. I didn’t know.”
She stood.
Pain stopped her halfway.
Nathan reached toward her.
She slapped his hand away.
“You told me you needed time.”
May you like
“I did.”
“You told me you weren’t going anywhere.”
