Chương 4
“You didn’t know this existed.”
She looked toward the treatment doors.
“But you did tell me Sarah died.”
“I believed she had.”
“I know.”
Claire leaned her head back against the wall.
“I also know you kept a box of her things in your storage unit.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You found it?”
“No. You told me.”
“I forgot.”
“That’s encouraging.”
Despite everything, he gave a short laugh.
Claire looked at him.
“I’m not competing with a ghost anymore, apparently.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No. None of this is.”
She studied his face.
“Do you love her?”
Daniel looked away.
A nurse wheeled an elderly man past them.
“I don’t know her.”
Claire waited.
Daniel rubbed his palms together.
“I loved who she was five years ago. I hated her for dying. Then I hated myself for hating her. Then eventually I could go a day without thinking about her.”
Claire nodded.
“That sounds more honest.”
“She has my child.”
“She says she does.”
“You don’t believe her?”
“I believe Sarah believes what she said.”
Daniel looked at her sharply.
Claire shrugged.
“I’m a lawyer. Also, I’m the woman who was supposed to marry you in six weeks.”
“You think she’s lying?”
“I think your father knew Lily existed, which means paternity can be established easily enough.”
Daniel stared at his hands again.
Claire continued.
“But the rest? Payment, coffin, disappearance, why she came to that building today? We need facts.”
“Richard says she came carrying something.”
Claire’s expression changed.
“What?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Of course he wouldn’t.”
A door opened.
Sarah stepped into the hall.
Hospital scrub pants hung loosely on her. Her injured arm was bandaged from wrist to elbow. The necklace still rested at her throat.
She looked at Claire first.
Then Daniel.
“Where’s Lily?” Daniel asked.
“Asleep.”
“Is she okay?”
“She will be.”
He nodded.
Sarah’s eyes dropped to his bloody knuckles.
“Did you hit him?”
Daniel said nothing.
Sarah exhaled.
“That was stupid.”
“He knew about Lily.”
“I know.”
“You knew he knew?”
“Yes.”
Claire watched both of them.
Daniel stood.
“Tell me everything.”
Sarah looked at him for a long moment.
“No.”
He blinked.
“No?”
“You don’t get everything tonight.”
“Sarah.”
“I have a concussion. Lily is asleep for the first time in eighteen hours. Two people from that building are still missing, and the police want to talk to me.”
“I deserve to know.”
Her face changed.
Not anger.
Something more tired.
“You deserve?”
Daniel regretted the word before she spoke again.
Sarah folded her arms carefully.
“You had five years of believing I was dead. It was horrible. I know it was. But I had five years of knowing exactly where you were and being unable to call you.”
“You could have.”
“No.”
“You had a phone.”
“I had a threat.”
“What threat?”
She looked toward Lily’s room.
“My daughter.”
Daniel’s anger faltered.
Claire shifted on her crutches.
Sarah continued.
“Your father didn’t just pay me. He paid my medical bills after the collapse. He put me in an apartment in Arizona. He gave me enough money that I could keep Lily fed while I was recovering.”
Daniel stared at her.
“And in return?”
“I disappeared.”
“You agreed to let me think you were dead?”
Sarah’s eyes sharpened.
“I agreed because two days after I woke up, Richard showed me photographs of you getting into a car drunk.”
Daniel’s face drained.
Claire looked at him.
Sarah kept going.
“You remember that month?”
Daniel did.
He had been drinking heavily before the original collapse. Not constantly. Not publicly. Enough.
Sarah had begged him to stop.
One night he had driven after a charity dinner and clipped a median. Nobody had been hurt.
His father had made the incident vanish.
“I was a mess,” Daniel said.
“You were.”
“That doesn’t explain—”
“He told me if I came back, he would make sure Lily grew up in a custody fight with the Mercer family. He said you were unstable, that he had doctors who would say you were addicted, that he had photographs, police contacts, lawyers. He said if I challenged him, he would ruin me before the baby was born.”
Daniel’s hands curled.
Sarah noticed.
“Don’t hit another wall.”
“I’m not.”
“You always said that right before you hit something.”
Claire looked at him.
Daniel almost protested.
Then stopped.
Sarah looked down.
“And there was another reason.”
“The building.”
Her eyes lifted.
“Yes.”
Daniel sat again.
Sarah came closer but remained standing.
“The collapse five years ago wasn’t an accident.”
Claire’s grip tightened on the crutch handle.
Sarah touched the small necklace at her throat.
“I worked in records compliance for Mercer Urban. You remember that.”
Daniel nodded.
“You said it was boring.”
“It was.”
A faint smile passed over her face and disappeared.
“Mostly invoices and inspection reports. Three weeks before the collapse, I found two versions of the same structural certification for the B2 transfer beams. Same engineer. Same date. Different load values.”
Claire frowned.
“Forged?”
“I didn’t know. I asked my supervisor. He told me it was a revision. Then he took the file.”
“What supervisor?”
“Evan Laird.”
Daniel knew the name.
Former vice president of construction operations.
Retired three years ago.
Sarah continued.
“I copied both documents first.”
“Where?”
“Home.”
Daniel’s stomach tightened.
“I never saw them.”
“You weren’t supposed to. I was trying to decide whether I was being paranoid.”
“And then the garage collapsed.”
“Yes.”
“Were you down there because of the documents?”
Sarah looked toward the window at the end of the hall.
“No.”
Daniel waited.
She rubbed her thumb along the edge of her bandage.
“I was down there because I was throwing up.”
Claire blinked.
Sarah glanced at her.
“Morning sickness.”
The absurd ordinary detail hit Daniel harder than any conspiracy could have.
“You knew?”
“I had taken a test that morning.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“You were supposed to meet me for lunch.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
The lunch.
May you like
He had canceled it.
He had told Sarah a lender meeting ran late.
