Chương 3
A paramedic entered with a red bag, followed by a woman in navy scrubs. Clara recognized neither. The sight of medical equipment made the tightening in her abdomen worsen.
“I’m not going to a hospital,” she said.
The paramedic held up both hands. “No one said hospital. Can I check your blood pressure?”
“No.”
“Clara,” Eleanor began.
Clara turned on her. “You don’t get to use my name like it belongs to you.”
Eleanor went still.
Rebecca looked at the floor.
The paramedic waited, neither advancing nor retreating. He was young, with a crooked badge and a wedding band that appeared too loose. “How about you sit down,” he said. “No cuff, no monitor. Just sit for a minute and see if the pain eases.”
His ordinariness reached her where authority could not.
Clara sat.
The contraction loosened gradually. Her back ached. The baby shifted beneath her ribs, irritated but active. She counted movements while the courtroom emptied under Judge Carter’s order.
Eleanor remained several feet away.
For the first time since entering, she looked old.
Not fragile. Clara doubted Eleanor Sterling had permitted fragility in public for decades. But age had gathered around her eyes, and the hand with the diamond ring repeatedly touched the pearl at her left ear, twisting it a fraction and releasing it.
The paramedic eventually persuaded Clara to accept a blood-pressure reading. It was high. Not dangerously high, he said, but high enough that he recommended evaluation by her obstetrician.
“My doctor’s at St. Vincent’s,” Clara said.
Eleanor spoke to the security officer. “Have the car brought around.”
“I’m not going with you.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You were about to.”
A strange expression crossed Eleanor’s face. For half a second, she looked almost amused. It vanished quickly. “You are not easy.”
“You have no idea.”
“No,” Eleanor said. “I suppose I don’t.”
Rebecca offered to arrange a separate car. Clara refused that too. Her phone had been sitting facedown beside the forged order. When she picked it up, she found eleven missed calls from numbers she did not recognize and three from Mara Quinn, her closest friend from the foster home where they had spent most of high school.
A text from Mara read: Why is a reporter asking me whether you’re a kidnapped heiress?
Clara closed her eyes.
The world had moved faster than the courtroom doors.
She called Mara.
Mara answered on the first ring. “Tell me you’re not in labor.”
“I’m not in labor.”
“Tell me you’re not an heiress.”
“I don’t know what I am.”
There was a pause. In the background, a child complained that someone had taken his blue marker. Mara worked as an art teacher at a public elementary school and usually sounded as if she were calling from the center of a mild riot.
“Where are you?” Mara asked.
“County courthouse.”
“I’m coming.”
“You’re working.”
“I have accumulated forty-seven personal hours because apparently I’m emotionally avoidant and never take a day off. This is what they’re for.”
“Mara.”
“Stay somewhere with guards.”
Clara looked toward Eleanor’s security officers.
“That won’t be a problem.”
Mara arrived twenty-eight minutes later wearing paint-streaked black pants and carrying a tote bag printed with dancing vegetables. She passed two news vans outside the courthouse and entered through a service door Rebecca had arranged with the clerk.
When she saw Clara, she dropped the tote.
The women held each other without speaking. Mara was shorter and broad-shouldered, with copper curls pinned badly at the back of her head. One of her earrings was a yellow sun. The other was missing.
“You look terrible,” Mara said into Clara’s hair.
“So do you.”
“I teach seven-year-olds. I’m supposed to.”
Clara laughed, then began crying so abruptly that the sound embarrassed her.
Mara pulled her closer. “Okay. That’s okay.”
Across the room, Eleanor turned away.
Clara noticed.
She wished she had not.
Mara drove her to St. Vincent’s in a compact car that smelled of crayons and old coffee. Eleanor followed in a black sedan despite being told not to. Rebecca rode with her. The security officers divided themselves between vehicles with the smooth discretion of people accustomed to unwanted attention.
At the hospital, Clara’s obstetrician confirmed that the baby was not in immediate danger. The contractions were stress-related. Her blood pressure came down after forty minutes on her left side and two paper cups of water.
A nurse named Denise adjusted the monitor straps and frowned at the television mounted in the corner.
“Your face is on the news,” she said.
Clara stared at the ceiling. “Please turn it off.”
Denise did.
Outside the room, voices moved up and down the hall. Eleanor’s remained the easiest to identify, low and precise, answering questions without ever sounding rushed. Mara sat beside the bed folding and unfolding a cafeteria receipt.
“Did Julian know?” she asked.
Clara watched the green line of the baby’s heartbeat rise and fall across the monitor. “He called Eleanor by her first name.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“He lunged for the evidence.”
“That proves he’s stupid.”
“He said I was supposed to disappear.”
Mara folded the receipt into a smaller square. “That proves he’s dangerous.”
Clara turned her head.
Mara’s face had changed. The humor had left it.
“You can’t go back to the house,” she said.
“It’s my house too.”
“Legally, sure. Physically, it contains Julian’s things, Julian’s computers, maybe Julian’s employees, and definitely Julian’s ability to make your life miserable.”
“He’s in custody.”
“For how long?”
Clara had no answer.
May you like
Julian had not been arrested for the marriage itself or for shouting into a microphone. He had been detained for contempt, attempted interference with evidence, and an outstanding federal warrant Rebecca said had been unsealed during the hearing. Fraud charges were being considered. So were obstruction and identity-related offenses. Considered did not mean filed. Filed did not mean held. Held did not mean forever.
Mara placed the tiny folded receipt on the bedside table. “Come home with me.”
