Chương 4
The doctor’s expression did not change.
“That explains it,” she said. “It doesn’t repair it.”
Marcus stood.
His knees felt weak. He placed a hand on the table until the room steadied.
“I don’t know how to repair any of this.”
“Start by not confusing control with care.”
He looked at her sharply.
She opened the door.
“Your son is waiting.”
Zion lay inside a clear-sided crib with three leads on his chest and a line taped to his hand. The navy blanket had been replaced by a hospital one patterned with blue whales. His soft brown hair stuck up at the crown.
Marcus sat beside him.
For several minutes, he did nothing.
Then he placed one finger inside Zion’s palm.
The baby’s hand closed around it.
Marcus lowered his head.
He had not cried when Rachel died. There had been no time. There were forms, arrangements, relatives, a newborn who screamed whenever the room changed. People praised Marcus for holding himself together. His company’s board chair told him that Rachel would have been proud of his strength.
Marcus had accepted the compliment because the alternative was to admit he did not know how to fall apart without making everyone around him responsible for putting him back together.
Now his breathing broke in a way he could not control.
He bent over Zion’s crib and cried without sound.
At two in the morning, Emily was released from questioning.
No one had brought her a change of clothes. Her wet dress had dried stiff against her skin, and her bare foot had swollen. A nurse found a pair of foam slippers in a supply closet.
Grant Bell waited near the elevators.
“Ms. Carter.”
Emily stopped.
“I represent Mr. Whitaker.”
“I know who you are.”
“I’d like to arrange transportation and temporary accommodations. The estate remains an active scene.”
“My mother can pick me up.”
“It’s two in the morning.”
“She’s awake.”
Grant offered a sympathetic smile that did not reach his eyes.
“Mr. Whitaker is grateful for what you did tonight.”
“He accused me of poisoning his baby.”
“He was acting on the information available to him.”
“The information from the woman who poisoned his baby.”
“Preliminary evidence suggests exposure. We should avoid conclusions until the investigation is complete.”
Emily looked at him.
“The doctor called it poison.”
“The doctor is treating a medical emergency, not determining legal intent.”
“Is this how you thank people?”
Grant’s smile disappeared.
“I am trying to protect everyone involved, including you.”
“From what?”
“Public attention. Misreporting. Speculation. Your name appearing beside words like poisoning and negligence.”
“My name already appeared beside those words in that house.”
Grant slipped a business card from his pocket.
“There will be reporters by morning.”
“How would reporters know?”
He hesitated.
Emily laughed once. She had not meant to. It came out tired and ugly.
“Of course.”
“A hospital employee may have contacted someone. Police radio traffic can be monitored. Mr. Whitaker is a public figure.”
“No. He owns a company. That’s not the same thing.”
“To the press, it often is.”
The elevator arrived.
Emily stepped inside.
Grant held the door.
“We can provide independent counsel for you.”
“Independent, paid by him.”
“That is common.”
“So are roaches. People still try to get rid of them.”
The doors closed on his face.
Emily’s mother picked her up in a twelve-year-old Honda with a dent in the passenger door. She wore pajama pants beneath a wool coat and had forgotten her reading glasses, though it was unclear why she thought she would need them.
For the first ten minutes, she said nothing.
Then she reached across the console and touched Emily’s wet sleeve.
“You smell like a swimming pool.”
“Hospital soap.”
“Your shoe?”
“Gone.”
“Good shoe?”
“No.”
“That’s something.”
Emily leaned her head against the window. Streetlights moved across the glass.
Her mother drove below the speed limit. She always did after dark because one of her eyes had never fully recovered from a retinal tear. Cars passed them, bright and impatient.
“Is the baby alive?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you do anything wrong?”
“I yelled at a billionaire in a hospital.”
Her mother considered this.
“Your grandmother would call that cardio.”
Emily closed her eyes.
The laugh came before the tears. She pressed both hands over her face, ashamed of the noise she made.
Her mother kept driving.
At home, Emily showered for nearly half an hour. She scrubbed her arms until the skin turned pink, though she knew the chemical had not touched her. The bitter smell remained in her nose.
When she came out, her mother had made toast and placed it on a plate beside a jar of grape jelly. One slice was burned at the edge.
Emily sat at the kitchen table wearing an old college sweatshirt. She had attended community college for three semesters before her mother’s first surgery. The sweatshirt was from a school she had never finished.
Her mother pushed the jelly toward her.
“You always liked too much.”
“I was twelve.”
“You still do.”
Emily spread a thin layer on the toast.
Her phone was still at the estate. Without it, she could not check whether Anthony had deleted her message. She could not call the agency that had placed her with the Whitakers. She could not even tell whether reporters had learned her name.
She ate half the toast.
At three fifteen, the landline rang.
Her mother stared at it.
“No one calls that unless someone died or wants to sell us windows.”
Emily answered.
Marcus said her name.
She almost hung up.
“I’m calling from the hospital,” he said. “Zion is stable.”
“I know.”
“Dr. Ortiz said you had gone.”
“The police let me go.”
“I wanted to speak to you before you left.”
“You were with your son.”
“Yes.”
The silence stretched.
Emily could hear monitor beeps through the line and Marcus’s uneven breathing.
May you like
“I was wrong,” he said.
She looked at her mother, who was pretending not to listen while buttering a second piece of toast.
