Chương 12
There had been no violent foster parent and no kidnapper in a red pickup.
Mara had fallen through a broken motel stair railing three weeks before Elena died. Elena had not taken her to a doctor because she feared child services would remove her. The bruises were consistent with the fall.
Andrea explained this to Dominic in the kitchen.
He stared at the table.
“She left a six-year-old injured.”
“She was afraid.”
“She denied her medical care.”
“Yes.”
“You’re defending her.”
“No.”
“It sounds like you are.”
Andrea stirred powdered creamer into her coffee.
“Understanding why someone failed does not erase the failure.”
“She could have killed her.”
“Yes.”
Dominic stood and walked to the window.
Outside, frost silvered the lawn.
“I spent a month making Elena the victim of everyone except herself.”
Andrea said nothing.
“She loved Mara.”
“I believe she did.”
“That wasn’t enough.”
“No.”
The answer hurt more than argument would have.
Mara entered the kitchen in socks, dragging her blanket. She stopped when she saw Andrea.
“Am I leaving?”
“No,” Andrea said.
“Then why are you here?”
“To check on you.”
“You only check when something’s wrong.”
“I also check because the county enjoys paperwork.”
Mara looked at Dominic.
He kept his face still.
She noticed anyway.
“You found out about the stairs.”
Andrea set down her spoon.
“Yes.”
Mara looked at Dominic. “Mom said hospitals take kids.”
“Sometimes children need to stay somewhere else to be safe.”
“She was safe with me.”
“You were the child.”
“I helped her.”
“That shouldn’t have been your job.”
Mara’s face crumpled, not into tears, but into something harder.
“You didn’t help.”
Dominic could have defended himself. The facts offered no useful defense.
“No,” he said.
“You had a house.”
“Yes.”
“You had the dog.”
“Yes.”
“You had all the food.”
He gripped the windowsill.
“Yes.”
Mara turned and ran.
Umbral followed her.
Dominic started after them.
Andrea stopped him with one hand.
“Let her be angry.”
“She thinks Elena died because of me.”
“Part of her may always think that.”
“That isn’t fair.”
Andrea raised her eyebrows.
He almost laughed at himself.
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
The relationship between Dominic and Mara worsened after that.
She stopped waiting for him outside his office. She ate before he came to dinner. When he asked about school, she said “fine” in a tone that ended the conversation.
Umbral still followed Dominic during early morning walks, but only if Mara remained asleep.
The dog seemed to belong to a border neither of them could cross.
DeMarco offered his resignation during this period.
He placed a single-page letter on Dominic’s desk.
Dominic read it.
“No.”
DeMarco remained standing.
“You should accept.”
“Why?”
“The investigation found that I falsified two security summaries and failed to report Elena’s pregnancy claim through your personal channel.”
“Victor controlled the channel.”
“I could have found another.”
“Yes.”
“I also took the dog.”
“Yes.”
DeMarco waited.
Dominic tore the resignation letter in half.
“I don’t need you to disappear so I can feel decisive.”
“This is not about your feelings.”
“Everything has been about my feelings lately. People just use more expensive language.”
DeMarco looked at the torn paper.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Tell Mara.”
His face changed.
“Tell her what?”
“What you did.”
“She’s six.”
“She asks why Umbral stayed here.”
“That conversation could harm her.”
“Then speak with her therapist and Helen. Do it properly. But don’t make silence sound protective again.”
DeMarco looked toward the door.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Good.”
The conversation happened with Mara’s therapist present.
Dominic was not in the room.
He learned afterward that DeMarco told Mara he had taken Umbral from Elena and had promised to return him but did not.
Mara asked whether her mother cried.
DeMarco said yes.
She asked whether he was sorry then.
He said no, not enough.
She asked whether he was sorry now because Dominic might fire him.
DeMarco said partly.
The answer disturbed the therapist and satisfied Mara.
For a week, she refused to speak to him.
Then she began leaving the dog’s empty water bowl in places DeMarco would trip over.
He filled it each time.
One afternoon, she found him polishing Umbral’s brass-studded collar at the mudroom table.
“Don’t erase his name,” she said.
“I’m cleaning it.”
“The wrong name.”
DeMarco turned the gold tag over.
The back was blank.
“We could add the other one.”
“Dominic said we could call him Umbral.”
“That’s different from writing it.”
Mara sat across from him.
“Would it hurt?”
“The engraving?”
She nodded.
“No. We take the tag off first.”
She thought for a moment.
“Both names.”
“Why both?”
“Because Onyx is who he was here.”
DeMarco looked at the dog.
“And Umbral?”
“Who he was before.”
“What is he now?”
Mara frowned as though the answer should have been obvious.
“A dog.”
DeMarco took the tag to an engraver the next day.
The court hearing began in May.
Dominic testified for three hours.
Victor sat at opposing counsel’s table, no longer representing the family office but defending himself against related civil allegations and supporting the validity of the settlement.
Under questioning, Dominic admitted he had not opened Elena’s letters, had signed documents without reading attachments, and had accepted Victor’s reports because they allowed him to avoid conflict with his father.
Victor’s attorney asked whether Dominic now wished to shift blame after benefiting from Elena’s exclusion.
“Yes,” Dominic said.
The attorney paused.
“Yes, you wish to shift blame?”
“Yes, part of me does. Blame is easier when it has one address.”
A few people in the courtroom looked up.
The attorney approached.
“But Mr. Hale did not prevent you from searching for your sister after your father died, did he?”
“No.”
“He did not prevent you from hiring your own investigator.”
“No.”
“He did not prevent you from asking whether the death certificate had been independently verified.”
May you like
“No.”
“He did not prevent you from reading the documents you signed.”
