Chương 4
Claire had bought a replacement after Lily vomited on the original during a stomach bug. Lily had rejected the clean one immediately because one eye was half a centimeter higher.
Daniel had forgotten the duplicate existed.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“The duplicate was in my office desk.”
“And Ross knew?”
“I think he found it after the crash.”
“You think.”
“Yes.”
Daniel pressed his thumb against the water bottle until the plastic dented.
“Did Ross tell you to stay dead?”
Claire was silent for several seconds.
“Yes.”
“And you listened.”
“Yes.”
The answer was so small he almost missed it beneath the wheels.
Daniel walked into the corridor.
Rachel stepped aside.
He needed distance, but the train offered very little of it.
At the far end of the carriage, two passengers stood beside a small bar counter. One had noticed the disturbance and kept glancing over while pretending to study a menu.
Ordinary life continued.
Someone laughed in the next carriage.
A glass clinked.
A station announcement came through the speakers, muffled by static, warning passengers that the dining car would close at eleven.
Daniel checked the time.
10:17 p.m.
Twenty minutes earlier, he had been irritated because Lily had fallen asleep before seeing the observation car.
That version of his life seemed obscene now.
Claire stayed near the cabin.
“What happened after the call?” Daniel asked.
“I panicked.”
“You left the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I signed myself out.”
“Under what name?”
“They had me as unidentified at first. I gave them a false name before I left.”
Daniel looked at her.
“What name?”
“Anna Reed.”
Rachel’s eyebrows lifted.
Claire noticed.
“I had an aunt named Anna. Reed was my grandmother’s maiden name.”
“You planned that quickly for someone with a concussion.”
“I was terrified.”
“You were thinking clearly enough to invent an identity.”
“No. I was thinking badly enough to think that was my only option.”
Daniel leaned against the corridor wall.
The train’s vibration traveled through his shoulders.
“Where did you go?”
“A motel.”
“With what money?”
“I had forty-six dollars in cash in my coat.”
“Which coat?”
“The jacket I was wearing under my winter coat.”
“You said Jenna had your coat.”
“She had the gray outer coat. I had a black quilted jacket.”
Daniel hated that the details made sense.
He wanted one mistake large enough to destroy the whole thing.
Claire continued.
“The next day, your name was on the news.”
“What?”
“The local station interviewed you outside our house.”
Daniel remembered.
A reporter had waited near the sidewalk. He had told them to leave. The clip lasted maybe six seconds.
Lily had been inside with Daniel’s sister.
“I saw you,” Claire said. “I saw our house. Ross called the motel.”
Daniel looked up sharply.
“How did he know where you were?”
“I called him.”
Rachel let out a quiet breath.
Daniel stared at Claire.
“You called him?”
“I wanted to tell him I would give him whatever he wanted if he left you alone.”
“And?”
“He said I didn’t have anything he needed anymore.”
“Because you were dead.”
“Yes.”
“He liked the mistake.”
“Yes.”
“So why not call me after that?”
Claire’s lips parted.
No words came.
Daniel waited.
This silence was different.
Not memory.
Choice.
He had been married to her long enough to recognize it.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Claire rubbed the silver ring with her thumb.
Rachel’s terminal chimed again.
“Fifteen minutes to Marlow Junction,” she said.
Daniel looked at Claire.
“Fifteen minutes.”
Claire nodded.
“I was afraid Ross would change his mind.”
“That’s not all.”
“No.”
“What else?”
She glanced at Lily.
“Not here.”
Daniel nearly shouted.
He swallowed it.
“You don’t get a better room.”
Claire lowered her voice.
“I had changed numbers in accounts I shouldn’t have changed.”
Daniel stopped breathing for a moment.
“What does that mean?”
“Ross asked me to move expenses between subsidiaries. At first I thought it was aggressive accounting. Then I understood it wasn’t.”
“Were you stealing?”
“No.”
“Were you helping him steal?”
Claire stared at the floor.
“Yes.”
Daniel sat down slowly.
Rachel looked away, giving him the privacy of not watching his face.
Claire went on.
“I told myself I was correcting things they would correct later. I told myself I was following instructions. I told myself if I quit, somebody else would do it.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Millions moved through those accounts. I don’t know how much of it crossed the line because of entries I made.”
Daniel’s mouth tasted metallic.
“You thought you were going to prison.”
“Yes.”
“So you let us bury somebody else.”
Claire flinched.
“At first I thought I would stay gone for a few days.”
Daniel laughed.
“You died for a long weekend.”
“I was going to find the attorney I had contacted. I was going to give him the records and figure out how to come back.”
“But?”
“I saw the funeral announcement.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
The funeral had been four days after the crash.
His sister had organized most of it because Daniel could barely decide what shirt to wear.
“The county had formally identified Jenna as me,” Claire said. “Ross had sent them a dental file. I knew that file wasn’t mine.”
Daniel opened his eyes.
“How?”
“Because I’d had a crown replaced six months earlier. The chart they described in the news release had the old crown.”
Rachel frowned.
“Why would a news release describe dental work?”
“It didn’t. I called the county pretending to be from Merrick HR.”
Daniel stared.
Claire swallowed.
“I asked what records they had used. I knew the person who answered. I’d worked with her on benefits paperwork after an employee death. She shouldn’t have told me as much as she did.”
“And you did nothing.”
“I did nothing.”
The train passed through another dark stretch.
May you like
This time there was no tunnel, only open country without houses.
Daniel watched Claire’s reflection in the glass.
