Chương 2
Emma lifted her head a fraction.
“Mommy, can we go to the little room?”
The little room was what she called the downstairs morning room, though it was larger than Mara’s first apartment. It had a couch, a television hidden inside a cabinet, and doors that opened into a covered side passage leading to the guest wing.
Mara touched her cheek. “Yes.”
Daniel stepped toward the hallway. “I’ll bring towels.”
“No.”
He stopped.
“I’ll get them.”
“Mara, don’t do this.”
She almost laughed. Not because anything was funny, but because the sentence was so perfectly Daniel. Whatever happened, the problem began when someone else reacted to it.
“Move away from the hall.”
His expression tightened. “I’m her father.”
“Then act like it.”
The words landed harder than Mara intended. Daniel’s face changed, not with anger but with shame so naked that she nearly looked away. He obeyed.
Celeste remained beside the armchair, one foot bare, the other still in the red heel.
“You arrive dripping rainwater across a nineteenth-century floor, speak to everyone as if they’re suspects, and expect gratitude,” she said. “Emma was never in danger.”
Mara turned toward the morning room.
“Emma was afraid.”
“Children are frequently afraid of being caught.”
Emma flinched.
Mara stopped.
Daniel said his sister’s name softly. It was not a warning. It was a plea.
Celeste lifted one shoulder. “She was wearing something she had been told not to touch.”
Emma raised her face from Mara’s shoulder. “I wasn’t.”
The words were quiet, but they carried across the marble.
Celeste’s eyes narrowed.
Mara felt Emma immediately regret speaking. The child’s body pulled inward, chin dropping, arms tightening.
Mara kissed the wet braid beside her ear. “You did fine.”
“She was,” Celeste said. “Several people saw her.”
“Several people saw her wearing it?”
“They saw the necklace on the floor.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Celeste’s mouth pressed thin.
Daniel looked at Mara. “Please take her somewhere warm. I’ll explain.”
“You’ll explain in front of Celeste.”
His gaze dropped.
Mara entered the morning room and closed the doors behind her.
The room smelled faintly of cedar, furniture polish, and the wood smoke drifting from the library fireplace. She set Emma on the couch but kept an arm around her. The child did not let go. Mara finally sat with Emma in her lap, boots planted on the pale carpet, rainwater darkening the upholstery beneath them.
For several minutes, she asked nothing.
She removed her field jacket and wrapped it around Emma’s shoulders, then used the dry inner lining to blot water from her own face. Emma watched every movement. Her lower lip was raw where she had bitten it.
“Your pajamas are pretty,” Mara said.
Emma looked down. “Dad got them.”
“The little moons?”
“They’re flowers.”
Mara examined the pattern. “You’re right.”
“You always think they’re moons.”
“I have poor flower judgment.”
A small breath left Emma’s nose. It was not quite a laugh, but the tension in her shoulders loosened.
Mara brushed a damp strand of hair from the child’s forehead. “You don’t have to tell me everything at once.”
Emma nodded.
“Did Aunt Celeste make you kneel?”
The child stared at a brass handle on the cabinet.
Mara waited.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She said I had to find all of them.”
“The pearls?”
Another nod.
“Did you break the necklace?”
“No.”
“Did you put it on?”
“No.”
“Did you touch it before it fell?”
Emma swallowed. “After.”
“Because you were picking up the pearls?”
“Yes.”
Mara kept her face still. “Where was Aunt Celeste?”
“Standing.”
“Near you?”
Emma’s eyes filled again.
“She came fast. Her shoe made a sound.”
“What kind of sound?”
Emma tapped two fingers together. “Like that, but bigger. Then it was off.”
“Did she kick it at you?”
“No. It came off when she stood in front of me.”
“Were you trying to leave?”
Emma nodded.
“Why?”
“Because she said I was a liar.”
The door opened before Mara could ask more.
Daniel entered carrying two towels and a folded blanket. He had removed his suit jacket. Without it, he looked younger and more exhausted. He placed everything on a chair rather than approaching the couch.
Mara watched him close the door.
“Where’s Celeste?”
“She went upstairs.”
“To change shoes?”
His jaw tightened. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Turn every word into something else.”
Mara took a towel and began drying Emma’s feet. One sole had a pale gray smear from the marble. No cuts. No tenderness when Mara pressed gently around the toes.
Daniel lowered himself into the chair opposite them.
“Emma, sweetheart, would you go watch something in the next room?”
The child’s arms locked around Mara again.
“No,” Mara said.
“We need to talk.”
“We’re talking.”
“Not in front of her.”
“You already made choices in front of her.”
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face. “I didn’t make her kneel.”
“You watched.”
He looked at Emma, then away.
That answer came without speech.
Mara wrapped the blanket around her daughter. “Tell me what happened.”
“The necklace clasp gave way. Emma was standing nearby. Celeste was upset. She told her to pick up the pearls.”
“You told me Emma dropped it.”
Daniel’s eyes closed briefly.
“You had one job in that foyer,” Mara said. “Tell the truth.”
“I was trying to calm everyone down.”
“By blaming a six-year-old?”
“I didn’t blame her.”
“You said she dropped it.”
“I said what would end the scene.”
“It didn’t end the scene for her.”
He leaned forward, forearms on his knees. “I know.”
“No, you know now. Because I came home.”
Emma shifted against Mara’s chest. Daniel heard the movement and sat back.
The house lights flickered. The chandelier beyond the closed doors dimmed, recovered, and steadied. Emma looked toward the ceiling.
“Backup generator,” Daniel said. “It may take a second if we lose power.”
May you like
Mara said nothing.
He had always explained mechanisms when emotions became too difficult. During their marriage he had once described, in exact detail, how the pump beneath their basement had failed while Mara stood ankle-deep in water and told him she was pregnant. He had not been indifferent. He had been terrified. It had taken her years to understand that Daniel used information as cover.
