Chương 2
The baby moved while they were fastening Ava to the stretcher.
One hard, indignant kick.
Ava laughed.
It surprised everyone, including her.
The paramedic nearest her looked down.
“Good sign?”
“I hope she’s complaining.”
“She?”
Ava swallowed.
“Yes.”
Another kick pressed against her ribs.
“She complains like her father.”
The joke lasted only a second.
Daniel’s name did not have to be spoken.
The air changed anyway.
Eleanor turned her face toward the tall arched window beside the staircase.
Vanessa looked down at the floor.
Daniel Morgan had been dead fourteen weeks.
Ava had spent most of those fourteen weeks trying to keep everybody from falling apart.
She had not considered herself among the people who might fall.
As the stretcher rolled toward the open doors, Vanessa stepped forward again.
“Ava.”
Nathan shifted between them.
Vanessa stopped.
Her face had gone pale beneath her makeup.
“I didn’t push you.”
Ava stared at her.
The statement was so carefully chosen that it sounded rehearsed already.
“I didn’t say you did.”
Vanessa’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
The paramedics rolled Ava into the dusk.
Behind her, the mansion remained brightly lit, the chandelier scattering warm light across the staircase where her phone still lay on the marble.
Nathan picked it up before following.
At the hospital, Ava learned there were different kinds of fear.
There was the fast kind, when a staircase disappeared beneath your foot.
There was the physical kind, when monitors were attached to your body and strangers spoke in calm voices because calm voices were part of their job.
And there was the long kind, which sat beside you under fluorescent lights and refused to tell you whether anything had changed.
The baby’s heart rate remained reassuring.
Ava repeated that phrase silently because the obstetrician used it twice.
Reassuring.
Not safe.
Not guaranteed.
Reassuring.
She had bruising along her hip and shoulder, a sprained wrist, and a small cut inside her mouth. The tightness in her abdomen eased after an hour. The doctors kept her for monitoring because of the fall and the stage of her pregnancy.
Eleanor sat in a vinyl chair beside the bed.
She had removed her earrings and placed them in her purse.
Ava had never seen her do that in public.
Nathan stood near the door until Ava finally said, “You can sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been standing for three hours.”
“I stand professionally.”
Despite herself, Ava smiled.
Eleanor looked between them.
“I don’t understand why there were security people outside the house.”
Nathan glanced at Ava.
Ava closed her eyes for a moment.
She had hoped to avoid this conversation for another week.
Then she had hoped to avoid it until after the baby came.
Before that, she had hoped Daniel would have the conversation himself.
There had always been another date to move the unpleasant thing toward.
“Daniel arranged the original contract,” Ava said. “I renewed it.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Eleanor stared at her.
“Why?”
Nathan spoke before Ava did.
“Mrs. Morgan asked me to increase coverage after somebody entered the house after midnight using an old family access code.”
Eleanor’s fingers tightened around her purse.
“Who?”
Ava said nothing.
Eleanor looked at her.
Then understood.
“No.”
“I didn’t know for certain.”
“Ava.”
“She said she’d come for a scarf.”
“At one in the morning?”
“She forgot it after dinner.”
“A scarf.”
“I know.”
Eleanor stood.
For a moment Ava thought she might leave the room. Instead she walked to the narrow window and pushed two fingers under the blind as if there were something useful to see in the hospital parking lot.
“You should have told me.”
“I didn’t want another fight.”
Eleanor let the blind fall.
“That family motto is working beautifully for us.”
Ava almost laughed again.
She stopped because her ribs hurt.
There was a knock.
A police officer stood outside with another officer behind him.
Nathan straightened.
Eleanor sat down.
Ava felt the baby move and placed her hand over the spot.
The first officer introduced himself, asked how she was feeling, and explained that they needed to understand what had happened at the house. His manner was careful without being sentimental.
Ava described the argument.
She described the slap.
She described stepping backward.
She did not say Vanessa had pushed her because Vanessa had not pushed her.
When the officer asked what had been said immediately before the slap, Ava hesitated.
Eleanor looked at her.
Nathan looked at the floor.
Ava said, “She said my baby was never supposed to inherit the house.”
The officer paused over his notes.
“Was there an ongoing dispute about ownership?”
“There is now.”
That was not quite an answer.
He noticed.
“So there wasn’t before?”
Ava rubbed her thumb against the edge of the hospital blanket.
“There was a disagreement inside the family. I didn’t realize Vanessa knew enough about it to be angry.”
“How much is the house worth?”
“I don’t know.”
Eleanor made a small sound.
Ava looked at her.
“What?”
“You do know.”
“I know what the last insurance valuation said.”
“That counts as knowing.”
The officer waited.
Ava gave him the approximate figure.
His eyebrows moved despite his attempt to keep them still.
He wrote it down.
When he finished with Ava, he asked Eleanor whether she was willing to give a statement.
Eleanor stood.
“Yes.”
Ava watched her follow the second officer into the hall.
Nathan pulled the chair closer to the bed and finally sat.
For a while neither of them spoke.
Then Ava said, “Vanessa will call a lawyer.”
“She already did.”
Ava turned her head.
“How do you know?”
“She left the house twenty minutes after the ambulance.”
“You let her leave?”
“I had no lawful reason to hold her there.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“She made three calls in the driveway before she left. One went to Martin Greeley.”
Ava knew the name.
Vanessa had used Martin during her divorce.
“He’ll make this ugly.”
May you like
Nathan leaned back.
“He gets paid to make things survivable for his clients.”
