Chương 2
Victoria moved before anyone else did.
“You will say nothing further.”
The officer did not raise his voice.
“Mrs. Hale, I’m going to need you to come with me.”
“I chartered this vessel.”
“No, ma’am.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The Hale Foundation chartered it. The master operates it.”
Victoria stared at him.
He nodded toward the staircase.
“And at this moment the master has instructed me to keep you away from Deck Two.”
For the first time all evening, Victoria looked past Claire for help.
None came.
Claire became aware of her own heartbeat. A few seconds earlier she had slapped a sixty-six-year-old woman in front of witnesses. She had not yet decided how frightened she was of that fact. Her right palm still tingled.
Sophie tugged her dress.
“Aunt Claire?”
Claire turned immediately.
Sophie was pale.
“What?”
“My backpack.”
“What about it?”
“I think it’s down there.”
The officer heard her.
His expression changed.
“How do you know that?”
Sophie’s lips parted, but Victoria spoke first.
“She doesn’t.”
The officer looked at her.
Victoria’s composure had returned almost completely. That frightened Claire too.
“She’s an anxious child,” Victoria continued. “She confuses things. Since the accident she has become unusually suggestible.”
Claire turned so fast that one of her earrings brushed her neck.
“Stop talking about her like she isn’t standing here.”
“I am trying to prevent you from turning a frightened child’s imagination into an accusation.”
Sophie’s fingers tightened around the handle of her crutch.
“I saw Owen take it.”
Nobody spoke.
Victoria’s gaze moved toward Sophie with exquisite slowness.
Claire saw the child recoil.
“Who’s Owen?” the officer asked.
One of the guests near the bar cleared his throat.
Victoria looked at him.
He immediately looked away.
Claire knew that reaction.
She had been doing versions of it herself for years.
“Owen Mercer,” she said. “Victoria’s assistant.”
The officer nodded once.
“Where is he now?”
No one answered.
That became the second question that changed the night.
Owen Mercer was not in the observation lounge, not in the dining room, not in his assigned cabin and, according to the bridge after a hurried radio check, not with any member of the crew.
Victoria said he was probably working.
Claire said nothing.
She was looking at Sophie.
Fourteen months earlier, Sophie’s parents had died on a wet interstate outside Burlington when a delivery truck crossed two lanes and struck the driver’s side of their rental car. Sophie had survived because she had been asleep in the rear passenger seat. Her pelvis had fractured in three places. Nerve damage had left her right leg weak enough that she sometimes used a forearm crutch, particularly when tired.
People had been telling Claire what the accident meant ever since.
Sophie was lucky.
Sophie was resilient.
Sophie would adapt.
Sophie needed stability.
Claire had learned that adults liked those words because they turned suffering into something manageable.
Sophie herself mostly wanted people to stop watching her walk.
She also hated peas, loved old monster movies, cheated at Go Fish when she thought Claire was distracted, and could spend forty minutes choosing which socks to wear before school.
That was the child Victoria had just told to crawl.
Claire crouched beside her.
“Did Owen take your backpack tonight?”
Sophie nodded.
“When?”
“Before dinner.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Sophie looked at the black floor.
Claire regretted the question immediately.
Not the words. The tone.
Too sharp.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That came out wrong.”
Sophie rubbed her thumb across the worn grip of the crutch.
“He said Grandma Victoria wanted it.”
“Did he say why?”
“No.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No.”
Claire waited.
“He took it from my room.”
The officer crouched several feet away, leaving Sophie space.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Sophie.”
“I’m Daniel Reyes. I’m the chief security officer on board. Would it be okay if I asked you one thing?”
Sophie looked at Claire.
Claire nodded.
Sophie did too.
“What made you think your backpack was in the room downstairs?”
Sophie stared toward the restricted staircase.
“Grandma Victoria told Owen to put my things there.”
“When?”
“Earlier.”
“Did you hear her?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you?”
“In the library room.”
Claire blinked.
“What library room?”
“The one by the piano.”
Claire had been there that afternoon for tea with two foundation trustees. Sophie had spent twenty minutes in the adjacent reading alcove drawing whales on stationery while Claire listened to Victoria describe a scholarship initiative she wanted Claire to endorse.
Victoria had seemed bored by the entire conversation.
Apparently she had not been.
Sophie continued quietly.
“I was behind the curtain because I dropped my pencil.”
Victoria sighed.
That sound, more than anything, made Claire want to hit her again.
She did not.
“What did you hear?” Reyes asked.
Sophie looked toward Victoria.
The old woman met her eyes.
Claire stepped sideways until the line between them was broken.
Sophie breathed out.
“She said, ‘Put the bag in the quiet room.’”
Reyes glanced toward Claire.
“Anything else?”
“She said maybe I’d need somewhere to calm down after midnight.”
The room seemed to contract.
Claire stared at Victoria.
“After midnight?”
Victoria’s voice remained level.
“We were scheduled to discuss guardianship tonight.”
“No,” Claire said.
“Yes.”
“We were scheduled to discuss the trust.”
“The two subjects are connected.”
“They are absolutely not.”
Victoria’s mouth flattened.
That afternoon, over tea, Victoria had presented the weekend as a family matter. A foundation anniversary. A private voyage before the expedition ship began its commercial season. There would be board members, donors, legal advisers, and a handful of relatives. At midnight, on what would have been Sophie’s father’s thirty-ninth birthday, Victoria wanted to announce a restructuring of the Hale family trust.
Claire had almost declined the invitation.
Sophie had wanted to see icebergs.
May you like
That had been enough to make Claire say yes.
Now she wished she could reach backward through three weeks of emails and drag herself away from every polite sentence she had sent.
