Chương 9
“She is old.”
“You know what I mean.”
“She looked vulnerable.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make her innocent.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Laura set down the mug.
“I’m not you, Daniel. I don’t turn feelings into policy statements.”
“That’s unfair.”
“Everything is unfair right now.”
He leaned back.
Laura rubbed her forehead.
“She asked me to bring her the blue cardigan from the upstairs closet. She said the house was cold. The thermostat was seventy-four.”
Daniel said nothing.
“She asked whether Emily still bites the inside of her cheek when she’s nervous. She wanted to know if Sophie was sleeping. She cried when I wouldn’t answer.”
“She’s not allowed contact.”
“I know.”
“She was using you.”
“I know.”
Laura looked at him.
“You keep saying that like it makes things easier.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then stop sounding like you’ve already finished grieving her.”
Daniel stood and carried his glass to the sink.
“I haven’t started.”
A search of Margaret’s house produced the red-bound family trust, Henry’s old medication storage box, a marble mortar with traces of warfarin in a groove near its base, and a pharmacy disposal bag that had never been used. Investigators also collected calendars, devices, and handwritten household notes.
The mortar had belonged to Margaret’s mother. Daniel remembered it from childhood, used to crush cardamom seeds during holidays. After Henry’s death, it moved from the kitchen to a private pantry near Margaret’s breakfast room.
Rosa Alvarez, Margaret’s housekeeper of twenty-one years, told police that Margaret had taken the mortar out twice in the previous month and washed it herself. That detail mattered because Margaret rarely washed anything herself, not even a water glass.
Rosa also recalled being asked to remove a tea cup from the breakfast room before Natalie visited one afternoon, then bring it back after Natalie arrived. She had considered the request odd but not alarming. Wealthy employers created odd tasks, and long employment trained people not to examine each one.
When investigators asked whether Rosa had seen powder, she said she once wiped blue-white dust from the pantry counter. She had assumed it came from a cleaning tablet.
The defense attacked her credibility within days.
An investigator working for Margaret’s attorney questioned Rosa’s nephew about an old immigration issue that had been resolved years earlier. A gossip site published the amount Margaret had paid for Rosa’s daughter’s college tuition, implying she had betrayed a benefactor for money.
Rosa stopped answering Daniel’s calls.
He drove to her apartment and waited in the parking lot until she returned from the grocery store. She saw him through the windshield and continued toward her building.
He got out.
“Rosa.”
She did not stop.
“I’m sorry.”
That made her turn.
“For which part?”
He stood beside his car with his hands visible, suddenly aware that arriving unannounced had been another form of entitlement.
“For coming here. For what they’re doing to you. For not seeing what working for my family required.”
Rosa shifted a grocery bag against her hip.
“You saw. You liked the result.”
The statement landed cleanly.
Daniel nodded.
“Yes.”
She studied him.
“You were nicer than your mother.”
“I thought that mattered.”
“It mattered. It was not the same as being good.”
A carton of eggs tilted near the top of her bag. Daniel reached automatically, then stopped before touching it.
Rosa adjusted the bag herself.
“She paid for Camila’s school because Camila was smart,” she said. “And because your mother wanted everyone to know she paid. Both things are true.”
“I’m not asking you to change your statement.”
“I know.”
“I came to say I’ll cover legal counsel if they keep harassing you.”
She laughed once.
“Then they say you bought me.”
“I can arrange it through a witness-support fund with no control over the lawyer.”
“You still think everything can be arranged.”
He looked at the cracked pavement between them.
“What should I do?”
“Tell the truth when it makes you look bad.”
She walked inside.
The advice followed him home.
Two days later, Daniel gave a public statement outside his attorney’s office.
He did not discuss evidence protected by the investigation. He confirmed that his daughters had raised concerns before the wedding and that he had failed to take one of those concerns seriously. He stated that employees who cooperated with police should not face retaliation and that he had asked the company’s board to appoint an independent investigator.
A reporter shouted, “Did your mother try to kill your wife?”
Daniel did not answer.
Another asked, “Is this a fight for control of Bellamy Hotels?”
“No,” he said. “It is a criminal investigation involving my family. Treating it as corporate entertainment is part of the harm.”
The statement did not improve public opinion immediately.
Some praised him. Others called it calculated. Financial reporters focused on the company’s falling share value. Anonymous sources described him as emotionally unstable and unprepared for leadership. One article claimed Natalie had pressured him to turn against Margaret.
Natalie read that one at three in the morning.
Daniel found her sitting on the bathroom floor, phone in hand.
“You said you stopped reading.”
“I lied.”
He sat beside her.
The tile was cold through his pajama pants.
The article included a photograph of Natalie leaving a prenatal appointment. Her face had been circled beside an inset photograph of Claire. The headline asked whether Daniel had abandoned one family for another.
“I didn’t make you do anything,” Natalie said.
“I know.”
“People think I did.”
“People think whatever keeps them clicking.”
“She was good at this.”
“Who?”
“Your mother. She knew exactly what story they would tell about me.”
Daniel took the phone from her and turned it off.
Natalie did not resist.
“I keep replaying every cup she handed me,” she said. “Christmas. The school recital. The day we told the girls about the baby.”
“Did anything taste wrong?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
He rested his head against the wall.
May you like
“She may not have done it then.”
“That’s supposed to help?”
