Chương 4
His father did not tell him what to do.
That was unusual enough to make Ethan decide.
He gave Henry the USB.
Henry placed it inside a clean envelope from his briefcase, wrote the time across the flap and signed his name.
Laura watched him.
“What happens now?”
“We make a forensic copy in the morning.”
Daniel stared at him. “I’m not waiting until morning.”
“You are.”
“Henry.”
“You hired me because I tell you no occasionally.”
“This is not a contract.”
“That’s why the answer is still no.”
Daniel turned toward the windows.
The storm had made his wedding clothes look ridiculous. Black trousers. White shirt. Black bow tie still perfectly centered.
Ethan sat in one of the leather chairs.
He was exhausted suddenly.
His father noticed.
“Did you eat?”
Ethan stared at him.
Daniel rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“Right. Stupid question.”
“I had bread.”
“At the reception?”
“Before.”
Laura went to the small cabinet in the office and found a bottle of water.
Daniel watched her do it.
“You still know where everything is.”
“I used to spend a lot of time here.”
“I know.”
“No,” Laura said. “You used to know.”
Henry looked between them. “Not tonight.”
Laura handed the water to Ethan.
He drank half.
Daniel finally sat behind his desk.
“Tell me from the beginning.”
Laura did.
Not the entire beginning.
Her beginning.
Ethan listened.
Rachel and Vanessa had disliked each other long before Rachel got sick. Vanessa had joined Daniel’s company as a crisis-communications consultant after a difficult acquisition. She was smart, efficient and unusually good at telling Daniel which problem deserved his attention first.
Rachel once called her “the human red notification dot.”
Daniel smiled when Laura repeated that.
The smile disappeared immediately.
During Rachel’s treatment, Daniel traveled constantly between Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. Vanessa managed his schedule. At first Rachel appreciated her.
Then calls began failing to reach Daniel.
Plans changed without Rachel knowing.
A weekend Daniel believed Rachel had canceled was a weekend Rachel believed Daniel had chosen to work.
Small things.
Plausible things.
Things couples under pressure blamed on each other.
Daniel stared at the surface of his desk.
“The Napa weekend.”
Laura nodded.
“What about it?”
“Rachel didn’t cancel.”
Daniel said nothing.
“She packed.”
“How do you know?”
“I was here.”
His jaw flexed.
“I got an email from her.”
“Rachel said she never sent it.”
Daniel looked up.
Henry asked, “Do you still have that email?”
“Probably.”
“Don’t search for it tonight.”
Daniel gave him an irritated glance.
Henry shrugged. “You’ll start clicking through things emotionally and then I’ll spend tomorrow asking what you moved.”
Daniel pushed his chair back.
“What else?”
Laura held one of the papers.
“Rachel started documenting missed messages. Things Vanessa told her you said. Things Vanessa told you Rachel said.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You knew all this?”
“I knew Rachel believed it.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Laura’s voice tightened. “Yes.”
“And you sat on it.”
“I didn’t sit on it.”
“What would you call eighteen months?”
“Being afraid of you.”
The words landed quietly.
Ethan looked at his father.
Daniel looked confused first.
Then offended.
“Afraid of me?”
“You were out of your mind after she died.”
“I was grieving.”
“So was everyone else.”
“You accused Vanessa at Rachel’s funeral.”
“I asked why she had Rachel’s phone.”
Daniel stopped.
Ethan looked at Laura.
Laura turned to him. “You weren’t there.”
“I was at the funeral.”
“Not that part.”
Daniel stood.
“Vanessa had the phone because I asked her to handle calls.”
Laura laughed without humor.
“Your wife had been dead twelve hours.”
“And I couldn’t answer two hundred messages.”
“So you gave her phone to the woman Rachel had accused of interfering with her messages.”
Daniel leaned both hands on the desk.
“You never told me Rachel accused her of that.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“The kitchen. The morning after the funeral.”
Daniel stared.
Rain hissed against the windows.
Ethan remembered the kitchen that morning.
He had been sitting under the table.
Nobody knew.
There had been too many people in the house. He had crawled beneath the long kitchen table with his mother’s old tablet because it was the only place people did not touch his shoulder.
He remembered Laura’s shoes.
He remembered his father saying, Not now.
Maybe that had been the conversation.
He looked at Daniel.
“I heard you.”
Daniel turned.
“When?”
“The morning after Mom died.”
Laura’s face changed.
Ethan rubbed his thumb against the plastic water-bottle cap.
“You said, ‘Not now, Laura. Not this.’”
Daniel sat again.
“I don’t remember.”
“I do.”
Nobody spoke for a while.
Henry finally opened the cream envelope.
He did it carefully, cutting along the top with a small letter opener.
Daniel watched him.
“You said Rachel instructed you to give it to me if Vanessa entered Ethan’s life.”
“More specifically, if Vanessa sought formal authority involving Ethan, his property, his residence, his schooling, or his medical decisions.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“She was going to be my wife.”
“Which is why I called you twice this week.”
“You said it concerned estate planning.”
“It did.”
“You didn’t say Rachel left something.”
“Your late wife instructed me not to.”
Laura crossed her arms. “That seems like a fairly important omission.”
Henry looked at her. “Rachel did not trust Daniel to act rationally if Vanessa was involved.”
Daniel almost snapped back.
Then stopped himself.
Henry removed three pages.
The first was handwritten.
The second and third were typed.
He handed the handwritten page to Daniel.
Ethan watched his father read.
Halfway down, Daniel put one hand against his mouth.
“What?”
Daniel did not answer.
“Dad.”
He lowered the letter.
“Your mom says she didn’t know whether Vanessa was deliberately keeping us apart or whether I was using Vanessa to avoid dealing with her illness.”
Laura closed her eyes briefly.
Daniel continued.
“She says both possibilities made her afraid.”
Ethan stared at the handwriting.
May you like
“Can I read it?”
Daniel hesitated.
