Chương 4
Elliot had moved to a chair near the windows. The dark garden reflected his pale face back at him.
Deputy Ruiz crouched several feet away, keeping her hands visible.
“I’m not going to ask you what happened tonight,” she told him. “You’ve already told your family, and it’s better if you don’t have to keep repeating it. Someone trained to talk with children may meet with you another day. Would that be okay?”
Elliot glanced at Elise.
She nodded.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you have any questions for me?”
“Will you watch the camera?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
He looked satisfied.
Vivienne gave her statement in the library. Nora gave hers in the morning room. Thomas moved between rooms until Calder ordered him to choose one place and remain there.
The engagement dinner dissolved without anyone formally ending it.
Catering staff covered abandoned plates. Candles burned down into shallow pools of wax. The white roses remained open and fragrant, indifferent to the fact that the future planned around them had become uncertain.
At eleven thirty, Nora stood in the front hall while Elise buttoned Elliot’s wool coat.
“You’re coming with us,” Elise said.
Nora looked toward Thomas. He was speaking with Rebecca beneath the portrait of his great-grandfather, a man who had made his money in rail freight and spent it building rooms too large for ordinary grief.
“I’m staying at the guest cottage,” Nora said.
“Alone?”
“With Thomas.”
Elise’s expression tightened.
“He didn’t switch the cup.”
“He also didn’t come with you when you left the security room.”
Nora stared at her mother.
Elise looked away first. “I’m angry. I may be unfair for a while.”
“That makes two of us.”
Elliot put on his gloves. “Are you still getting married?”
The adults went quiet.
Nora crouched carefully in front of him. The satin dress pulled across her knees, and Thomas’s jacket slipped from one shoulder.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Elliot’s eyes filled with concern, though he did not cry. “Because I told?”
“No.”
“But it happened after.”
“It happened because someone moved the cup. Telling the truth didn’t create what happened.”
He studied her as though testing the structure of the sentence.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She was not sure about much else.
He leaned forward and placed his forehead briefly against hers. It was the kind of affection he gave when words had become inefficient.
After Elise drove away with him, Nora found Thomas outside on the stone terrace.
The night smelled of wet leaves and chimney smoke. The conservatory shone at the east end of the house, its black frames dividing the light into orderly squares.
Thomas had removed his bow tie. The top button of his shirt was open.
“The deputies took the cups,” he said.
“I saw.”
“They took Vivienne’s statement.”
“I know.”
“She’s staying in the north wing. Rebecca told her not to leave the estate until the investigators say they’re finished.”
Nora wrapped his jacket around herself. “Is that Rebecca’s legal advice or your family’s version of house arrest?”
“I don’t know.”
“Thomas.”
“I don’t know, Nora.”
His voice cracked on her name. He turned away and put both hands on the stone balustrade.
They had been together three years. Nora had seen him furious, exhausted, drunk once at Graham’s bachelor party, and frightened when his father died. She had never seen him unable to choose which emotion to show.
“She lied,” Nora said.
“Yes.”
“Immediately.”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe the caffeine story?”
He took too long.
Nora laughed once, without humor. “That’s an answer.”
“I believe there may be an explanation I don’t understand yet.”
“She switched a cup beside your pregnant fiancée and denied doing it until we showed her a recording.”
“I was there.”
“You keep saying things like I’m giving you a report.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“That you believe me.”
“I believe you didn’t know the cup had been moved.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
He turned. “I believe Elliot saw what he said he saw. The recording proves it. I believe Vivienne lied. I do not know that she was trying to hurt you.”
“She used that word before anyone else.”
“I know.”
“And you still want to protect her.”
“She is my sister.”
Nora’s hand returned to her belly.
Thomas saw and flinched.
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“Use the baby to end the conversation.”
The cold seemed to sharpen around them.
Nora stared at him.
He closed his eyes. “That came out wrong.”
“No. It came out before you could make it sound better.”
“I meant that every time you touch your stomach, I feel as if you’re telling me I failed both of you.”
“I’m touching my stomach because I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too.”
“You’re worried about your sister.”
“I’m worried about all of you.”
“That must be exhausting.”
She walked toward the guest cottage before he could answer.
The cottage stood beyond a hedge of yew, close enough to Bellwether House for guests to admire the estate and far enough away for them not to hear its pipes. Nora had stayed there often during the past year while contractors renovated the apartment Thomas kept in Manhattan.
Inside, she removed the satin dress and hung it over a chair because she could not bear to place it back in its garment bag. The diamond ring on her left hand caught in the lining.
She stared at it.
Thomas entered ten minutes later.
He did not ask whether he could sleep in the bed. He took a blanket from the linen closet and lay down on the sofa.
Nora turned off the bedroom light.
In the darkness, she listened to him breathing in the next room. He breathed deeply for several minutes, then stopped pretending to sleep.
Around two in the morning, Nora rose and found him sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of water.
May you like
Neither apologized.
“I should have followed you out of the security office,” he said.
