Chương 7
Clara remembered the day. Lucas had spilled lemonade on his suit. She had been searching for a sink.
“I was there for less than five minutes.”
“Do you remember entering the medication room?”
“No.”
“Do you remember seeing silver vials?”
“No.”
“Do you remember meeting a man named Owen Price?”
“No.”
Wu showed her another still. A tall stable employee held open a door as Clara passed.
“That could be him,” she said. “I don’t remember his name.”
“He says you asked where calming medicine was stored.”
Clara stared at the photograph.
“I asked where the washroom was.”
“He says you asked about medicine for an anxious child.”
“That’s a lie.”
Rachel touched one finger to the legal pad, signaling Clara to stop.
Ortiz collected the photographs. “Mr. Price has worked for the Crane family for twelve years.”
“So he is loyal,” Rachel said.
“Or accurate.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive. They are also not the same.”
Outside the precinct, Clara stood beneath an awning while rain darkened the pavement. Nina had offered to come, but Clara had refused. She needed one hour in which nobody treated her as breakable.
Rachel opened an umbrella.
“They’re building an alternative narrative,” she said. “You stole the medication in May, tested it on Lucas six weeks ago, and tried to use it again at the party. Isabelle caught you, and you blamed her.”
“Why would I drug the boys?”
“They will suggest attention, control, resentment, a desire to remove Isabelle, perhaps an attempt to make yourself indispensable.”
“That is insane.”
“Insane stories become persuasive when they contain photographs.”
Clara watched water collect at the edge of the awning.
“What do I do?”
“Tell the truth consistently. Don’t speculate. Don’t contact Isabelle, her family, the stable employee, or anyone who works for them.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good. Also, stop reading comments online.”
“I did.”
Rachel looked at her.
“I read fewer.”
“That isn’t stopping.”
They walked toward the subway entrance.
Clara’s phone rang. Damian’s name appeared.
Rachel glanced at the screen. “You can speak to him, but assume everything related to the case may eventually be repeated.”
Clara answered.
“Are you all right?” Damian asked.
“I’ve had better afternoons.”
“Ortiz told me they interviewed you.”
“She showed me a stable employee who says I asked for calming medicine.”
Damian exhaled slowly. “Owen Price.”
“You know him?”
“I’ve met him.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know him well enough to believe or disbelieve him.”
Clara stepped around a puddle. “You have become very disciplined with that sentence.”
“My attorneys recommend discipline.”
“And do your sons?”
Silence.
She regretted the sharpness but did not apologize this time.
“Ethan refuses to drink anything he hasn’t seen opened,” Damian said. “Lucas checks under every glass.”
Clara stopped walking.
Rain tapped against Rachel’s umbrella.
“I’m sorry,” Clara whispered.
“Maria says you used to make them warm milk with cinnamon when they were frightened.”
“Yes.”
“I tried.”
“How much cinnamon?”
“I don’t know. A reasonable amount.”
“That means too much.”
“It became mud.”
Clara covered her mouth to stop a laugh. It escaped anyway.
Damian’s voice softened. “Can they call you tonight?”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
At seven, Ethan and Lucas appeared on Nina’s tablet wearing matching dinosaur pajamas.
Ethan pressed his nose against the screen. “Miss Clara, come home.”
Clara sat on the couch with a pillow supporting her back.
“I’m staying with Cousin Nina for a little while.”
“Why?”
“My hand needs rest.”
Lucas held up his own palm. Someone had drawn a blue bandage on it with washable marker.
“Mine hurt too.”
“Oh, sweetheart.”
“Belle put bad sleepy.”
Damian’s hand entered the frame and steadied the tablet.
Clara’s breath stopped.
“What did you say?” she asked.
Lucas looked away.
Damian’s voice came from behind the screen. “We’re not asking him questions about that day.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
Ethan whispered something to his brother. Lucas crawled out of view.
“Can I show Miss Clara my tower?” Ethan asked.
“Yes,” Clara said.
For ten minutes, he displayed a block structure that appeared to violate basic engineering. Clara praised the red bridge. Ethan corrected her that it was a dragon hospital. Damian remained mostly silent.
Before the call ended, Lucas returned and touched the screen.
“No silver,” he said.
Then he ran away again.
Clara did not sleep that night.
At five in the morning, she remembered the crescent scratch.
The first vial had one.
Not on the cap. On the bottom.
She had noticed it because Isabelle set the vial on the nursery dresser, and it rocked slightly. Clara had picked it up, thinking something was trapped beneath it. The silver base had been dented along one edge.
The vial from the party in the police photograph had a smooth bottom. She had seen it when the broken crystal rolled away.
They were not the same container.
She called Rachel at seven.
“Good,” Rachel said. “Tell Ortiz, but phrase it as a memory, not certainty.”
“Does it help?”
“It supports the possibility of multiple vials.”
“The stable already reported several missing.”
“After the fact.”
Clara paced Nina’s kitchen. “Isabelle could have used one on Lucas and another at the party.”
“Yes.”
“Or I could have stolen several.”
“Yes.”
Clara stopped.
Rachel’s voice remained calm. “Evidence rarely arrives labeled with the side it belongs to.”
The Reed Foundation board met that afternoon.
Clara learned this because a financial news channel showed Damian entering the company’s Manhattan headquarters beneath a storm of questions. His black suit and controlled expression looked exactly as they had in the foyer, which caused the footage to loop repeatedly beside Clara’s blood-stained apron.
The board issued a statement postponing the children’s health initiative and placing Damian on temporary leave from its public campaign. No one accused him of wrongdoing. The decision was described as a measure to preserve public trust.
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Charles Crane appeared outside his attorney’s office and told reporters that his daughter was the victim of “a calculated domestic obsession.”
Damian’s company stock dropped four percent before recovering half the loss.
