Chương 6
“That is what the evidence supported.”
“But?”
Grant rubbed his wedding ring again.
“But your mother had been frightened during the week before she died.”
Nora looked at him sharply.
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t know until later.”
“How?”
“She left me three voicemails.”
June stared at him.
“What did she say?”
Grant’s eyes shifted away.
“I deleted them.”
Nora stepped toward him.
“You what?”
“I deleted them before the crash.”
“Why?”
“We were fighting.”
“Grant.”
“She called about Celeste. About the audit. About June. I was in Singapore. It was three in the morning there and I was angry. I listened and deleted them.”
Nora’s face tightened with disbelief.
“And after she died?”
“I tried to recover them.”
“Could you?”
“No.”
June asked, “What did she say?”
Grant closed his eyes briefly.
“She said I was choosing my sister because it was easier than choosing the truth.”
June waited.
“Was she right?”
“Yes.”
Grant did not qualify it.
That mattered.
Not enough.
But some.
The train began moving again at eleven-seven.
The first jolt rattled cups.
Maya returned to work.
Leah coordinated with a sheriff’s deputy who would meet the train at the next mountain station. Because Celeste had struck a child and Nora had struck Celeste, everyone involved would be asked for formal statements. The grave disturbance was a separate matter involving another jurisdiction.
Real life, June discovered, did not arrange itself around one dramatic truth.
It produced forms.
Leah needed names.
Daniel needed incident reports.
A train employee photographed the ruined cake and damaged service cart.
An insurance manager called about the broken tableware.
Theo’s father demanded to know whether his son had been recorded without consent, then learned half the dining car had been filming.
Oliver cried in the bathroom where nobody could see him.
Nora found him there while searching for June’s coat.
He was sitting on the closed toilet lid with his bow tie in his fist.
She stopped at the door.
“I can leave.”
He wiped his face.
“June hates me.”
“She’s pretty angry.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I believe you.”
“My mom said the necklace was hers.”
Nora leaned against the doorframe.
“Did you believe that?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“She’s my mom.”
There was no good answer to that.
Oliver looked at her.
“Are they going to arrest her?”
“I don’t know.”
“She hit June because she was scared.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“I know.”
He twisted the bow tie.
“She never hits me.”
Nora nodded.
Oliver waited as if he expected her to accuse Celeste of something else.
She did not.
“Why did you slap my mom?”
Nora exhaled.
“Because I was angry.”
“June’s a kid.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not.”
“No.”
“So that was worse.”
Nora looked at him.
“Maybe.”
He seemed surprised.
“Are you going to jail?”
“I doubt it, but I’ll have to deal with whatever comes from it.”
“What does that mean?”
“Probably explaining to several people why an adult who tells children not to hit people hit somebody.”
Oliver thought about that.
“That’s embarrassing.”
“Very.”
He smiled despite himself.
Then he looked ashamed for smiling.
Nora said, “You can still love your mother.”
His eyes lifted.
“Even if she did something bad.”
“Yes.”
“June doesn’t love me.”
“That’s a different problem.”
Oliver wiped his nose on toilet paper.
“Do you think she ever will?”
Nora looked toward the corridor.
“I think you should aim for her not wanting to hit you with dessert first.”
He laughed.
It came out wet and ugly.
More like a child.
At the next station, the sheriff’s deputy boarded and spent nearly ninety minutes taking statements.
Celeste’s attorney participated by phone.
Grant’s attorney tried.
Grant told him to stop talking.
Nora gave a complete account, including her slap.
When asked why she had done it, she said, “Because I lost my temper.”
The deputy asked whether she believed she was defending June from an immediate second strike.
Nora paused.
“No. Celeste had stopped.”
The attorney on speakerphone muttered something.
Nora ignored him.
June heard that from the next room.
She was glad.
She was angry at Nora.
Both could be true.
The deputy photographed June’s cheek. By then the swelling was small. Celeste’s cheek showed almost nothing.
No one was taken away in handcuffs.
June had expected either more or less.
Instead, the deputy explained that reports would be forwarded to the appropriate agencies, adults would be contacted, and decisions would be made after review. Because everyone had fixed addresses and there was no continuing immediate threat, the train continued.
Celeste seemed both relieved and insulted.
Before returning to her compartment, she stopped beside June.
Nora started to stand.
June said, “Don’t.”
Nora stayed seated.
Celeste looked at June for several seconds.
“I should not have hit you.”
June waited.
Celeste’s fingers pressed together at her waist.
“You frightened me.”
“That’s not sorry.”
“No.”
Celeste swallowed.
“I am sorry I hit you.”
June studied her.
“Why did you open the grave?”
Celeste’s expression closed.
“I can’t talk about that.”
“Then go away.”
A little shock crossed Celeste’s face.
June had never spoken to her that way.
Celeste looked toward Grant.
He did nothing.
She left.
The train reached Denver shortly after dawn.
Press waited outside the private terminal.
That had never happened to June before.
She saw cameras through the tinted glass of the platform doors and stopped walking.
“I don’t want to go out there.”
Nora put a hand near her shoulder, then remembered and lowered it.
“We can use the service exit.”
Grant was on the phone.
“I have a car downstairs.”
“I don’t want your car,” June said.
He ended the call.
“All right.”
May you like
The station manager led them through a baggage corridor that smelled of dust, diesel, and wet concrete.
June walked between luggage carts in her ivory dress and white cardigan, carrying her black Mary Jane shoes because her heels hurt. Her cream hair ribbon had come loose sometime after midnight. She kept it in her pocket.
