Chương 7
“She’s already in it.”
Charles went silent.
Daniel felt something cold settle inside him.
“You knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That she was talking to Michael.”
“No.”
“You just told me to keep her out.”
“Because your wife has a habit of making moral decisions about businesses she doesn’t understand.”
Daniel almost defended Claire.
Almost.
Instead he asked, “Did Rebecca understand the business?”
Charles sighed.
“Too well in some areas. Not enough in others.”
The insult sounded old.
Practiced.
Daniel could hear the shape of arguments he had never witnessed.
“Did she find payments?”
His father did not answer.
“Dad.”
“I’m coming up in the morning.”
“The road is closed.”
“It won’t be forever.”
“Don’t.”
“Daniel.”
“Do not come here.”
Charles’s voice hardened.
“You have no idea what your brother is trying to do.”
“No. I have an increasingly good idea what you’re trying to stop.”
Daniel ended the call.
His hands were steady now.
That frightened him more.
At 2:10 he knocked on Claire’s door.
She answered wearing the same black dress, though she had removed her heels. Without them she looked smaller.
She glanced at his face.
“You should put ice on that.”
Daniel stared at her.
“That was a terrible thing to say.”
“Yes.”
She stepped aside.
He entered.
Her suite was nearly identical to his.
The expensive luggage sat open on the bench. Claire’s cosmetics were arranged in a row on the dresser because she organized hotel bathrooms with military precision and left their bathroom at home looking as if someone had robbed a pharmacy.
Daniel remained near the door.
“I talked to my father.”
Claire’s shoulders stiffened.
“What did he say?”
“He admitted he was here.”
Claire sat on the edge of the bed.
“Did he admit anything else?”
“He told me not to talk to you.”
A faint, bitter smile appeared.
“That sounds familiar.”
Daniel ignored it.
“He said Rebecca understood some parts of the business too well.”
Claire looked up.
“That’s almost an admission.”
“No. It’s almost a sentence.”
“Fair.”
Daniel walked to the window.
“Why are you doing this?”
Claire frowned.
“Doing what?”
“This. Michael. Evelyn. Rebecca.”
She studied him.
“Because she died.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“It should be.”
“It isn’t. You didn’t know her.”
Claire stood.
“No. I knew what living with her death did to you.”
Daniel turned.
“That’s different.”
“I know.”
“You were jealous of her.”
Claire’s face went still.
The sentence had existed between them for years without being spoken.
She nodded.
“Sometimes.”
Daniel had expected denial.
The honesty irritated him.
“Why?”
“Because dead people are hard to compete with.”
“I never asked you to compete.”
“No. Which somehow made it worse.”
He looked away.
Claire continued before courage left her.
“You loved me. I knew that. But there were parts of you I couldn’t reach because they belonged to a night you never understood. Every February you became polite. You stopped sleeping. You checked the weather in places you weren’t going. You drove too slowly when roads got icy.”
Daniel folded his arms.
“You could have said something.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Many times.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I know.”
He heard the pain in that.
Claire sat again.
“When Michael called, I thought he was trying to hurt you. Then he told me Rebecca had been afraid of Charles.”
“So you investigated.”
“I listened.”
“You hired accountants.”
“Michael hired the accountant.”
“You met hotel managers in secret.”
“Yes.”
“You brought me here without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“And somehow none of that was an investigation.”
Claire rubbed her eyes.
“Fine. I investigated.”
“Why?”
“Because you weren’t going to.”
Daniel stared at her.
That was the first thing she had said all night that made him genuinely angry again.
“You don’t know what I would have done.”
“I know what you did for eight years.”
He stepped toward her.
“What was I supposed to investigate? The police said it was an accident.”
“Your brother stopped speaking to you. Your father’s story had holes. Rebecca called you fifteen minutes before she died.”
“And you think that means I failed her.”
Claire stood too.
“I think you were grieving.”
“That isn’t what you said.”
“No. It isn’t.”
“Say what you mean.”
Claire’s eyes held his.
“I think you were afraid of what you might find.”
The words sat between them.
Daniel’s first instinct was to leave.
He reached the door.
Then he stopped.
“Maybe.”
Claire’s expression changed.
Daniel looked at the brass handle rather than at her.
“My father was the person who came when my mother left.”
Claire said nothing.
“She left when I was twelve. Michael was fifteen. Dad never missed a day of work. Never forgot a school thing. Never complained in front of us. He made breakfast badly for six months until he hired somebody. He taught me to drive. He paid for Michael’s rehab twice.”
Claire’s face softened.
Daniel hated that too.
“He can be cruel,” Daniel said. “He can be arrogant. He can make you feel stupid for needing anything. But when something broke, he was there.”
He finally looked at her.
“Rebecca knew that.”
Claire nodded.
“She also knew what it cost you to question him.”
Daniel opened the door.
“I’m still angry with you.”
“I know.”
He looked back.
“And if you say I know one more time tonight, I may throw something.”
Claire’s mouth twitched.
“All right.”
He returned to his room.
He slept for forty minutes.
At 5:48 the storm weakened.
At 6:32 North Crown’s maintenance crew opened one lane on the lower road.
At 7:11 Michael Carter walked into the hotel lobby wearing a charcoal coat crusted with snow and carrying a black duffel bag.
Daniel watched him from the mezzanine.
His brother looked older than he remembered.
Michael was forty-four now, broad through the shoulders but softer around the middle, hair longer than Daniel’s and threaded with gray. There had been a time when strangers mistook them for twins. That time had ended.
Michael saw him.
May you like
Neither moved.
Then Daniel descended the stairs.
