Chương 5
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“That sounded like a lie.”
“My daughter’s in the other room.”
“Is she okay?”
“She wasn’t burned.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Daniel leaned against the sink.
“No.”
Marcus was quiet.
Daniel had hired him four days after Vivienne appeared because the attorney Daniel consulted had said something painfully sensible.
Assume nothing.
Daniel had hated the sentence.
He had hired Marcus anyway.
“What did you find?”
“A petition from eighteen months ago in Connecticut.”
“For what?”
“Access to records from the Mercer family trust.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“Vivienne?”
“Yes.”
“I thought that trust ended when their parents died.”
“Most of it did. Not all.”
“What does that mean?”
“There was a separate trust created by their grandmother. Amelia’s share passed to Lily after Amelia’s death.”
Daniel straightened.
“I know Lily has an account from the Mercer side.”
“You may not know the contingent terms.”
“What terms?”
“If Amelia were alive, control of that share changes. If Lily died without descendants before a certain age, there’s a reversion provision.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“To whom?”
“Surviving issue of the original grantor. In plain English, potentially Vivienne.”
“How much?”
“Current estimates vary. Somewhere around nine million.”
Daniel looked at himself in the mirror.
The man staring back had bloodshot eyes and a line across his cheek from sleeping against his own hand.
Marcus continued.
“Don’t jump from motive to attempted murder. That’s not evidence.”
“She held a flare next to my daughter.”
“I know.”
“She asked about the tender.”
Marcus paused.
“Who told you?”
“The steward.”
“Tell police.”
“I did.”
“Good.”
Daniel stared at the counter.
“Why eighteen months ago?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“What else?”
“The petition was denied because she couldn’t establish a present beneficial interest sufficient for what she requested.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning she wanted documents she wasn’t entitled to see.”
“Did she get them another way?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“And Amelia?”
Marcus did not answer immediately.
“What about her?”
“Vivienne told me to ask why Amelia was leaving.”
“I saw that in the deputy’s preliminary note.”
Daniel opened his eyes.
“You have the police report already?”
“No. Your attorney called me.”
“Of course she did.”
Marcus sighed.
“I found a lease application in Amelia’s name dated twelve days before the crash.”
Daniel said nothing.
“It was for an apartment in San Diego.”
“No.”
“Daniel.”
“She was going there for work sometimes.”
“The application lists one adult and one child.”
He gripped the edge of the sink.
“No.”
“I emailed it.”
“No.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Decide you know what it means because you hate what it might mean.”
Daniel almost hung up.
Marcus knew him well enough to let the silence sit.
Finally Daniel said, “Anything else?”
“Yes.”
“A storage unit rented under Amelia’s maiden name.”
“When?”
“Two months before she died.”
“Where?”
“Costa Mesa.”
“Still active?”
“Closed six weeks after her death.”
“Who closed it?”
“That’s the interesting part.”
Daniel waited.
“Someone using a Connecticut driver’s license belonging to Vivienne Mercer.”
The bathroom seemed to shrink.
“She was here.”
“Yes.”
“When Amelia was alive.”
“Looks that way.”
Daniel thought of his wife’s funeral.
The crowded church.
The white flowers Lily had tried to eat because she was eleven months old.
The woman in the back row wearing sunglasses.
Had there been one?
He no longer trusted his memories enough to know.
“Find out what was in the unit.”
“I’m trying.”
Daniel ended the call.
He did not open the emailed documents.
For ten minutes he sat on the closed toilet lid and listened to the hotel plumbing.
When he returned to the room, Lily was awake.
She looked at him.
“You were gone.”
“Bathroom.”
“For a long time.”
“Yes.”
“Were you calling somebody?”
“Yes.”
“About her?”
“Yes.”
Lily pulled the blanket over her knees.
“Is she going to jail?”
“I don’t know.”
“She did a crime.”
“Yes.”
“So jail.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s dumb.”
“What is?”
“That grown-ups can do crimes and maybe jail.”
Daniel sat on the opposite end of the sofa.
“Things have to be proved.”
“We saw it.”
“Yes.”
“Nora saw it.”
“Yes.”
“The fire thing is still there.”
“The police took it.”
“Then proved.”
He almost said life was more complicated.
He stopped himself.
Instead he said, “That part may be.”
Lily nodded.
“What part isn’t?”
Daniel looked at her.
“A lot.”
They went home at eight.
The house looked exactly as it had the morning before.
That seemed offensive.
Lily’s yellow cup was beside the sink.
A basket of laundry sat unfolded on a chair.
Daniel’s mail rested on the kitchen island beneath a wooden bowl containing two soft peaches and one apple no one wanted.
Vivienne’s coffee mug stood in the drying rack.
Lily saw it first.
She stopped.
Daniel picked it up and threw it into the trash.
She flinched at the sound.
He immediately regretted it.
“Sorry.”
Lily walked to the trash can and looked inside.
“You broke it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was angry.”
“You told me not to break stuff when angry.”
Daniel shut his eyes.
“Correct.”
She reached into the trash.
“Don’t.”
“I’m getting it.”
“You’ll cut yourself.”
“It’s not broken sharp.”
She lifted the mug.
A crack ran through the handle, but it remained in one piece.
Lily set it carefully on the counter.
“We can throw it away without smashing it.”
Daniel stared at her.
“All right.”
She carried it to the outdoor bin herself.
For the rest of the morning they moved around each other cautiously.
Lily colored at the breakfast table.
Daniel answered calls from attorneys, detectives, his office, the yacht company, and one furious insurance representative who spoke for six minutes before realizing Daniel was not going to answer liability questions without counsel.
At eleven, Nora called.
Daniel almost let it go to voicemail.
He answered.
“Hi.”
“Mr. Hart.”
“Daniel is fine.”
A pause.
“Daniel.”
He could hear traffic behind her.
“Are you okay?”
Nora asked.
He looked at Lily.
“No.”
May you like
“Good.”
Daniel blinked.
