“My company may be connected to it.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No,” he said. “But responsibility can exist without intention.”
I thought of my ex-husband.
He had always believed intention erased consequence.
He had not meant to hurt me.
He had not planned to fall in love with someone else.
He had not intended to empty the account before leaving.
Marcus seemed to understand the difference without being told.
“Daniel found something else,” he said.
“What?”
“The attempted transfer originated from a branch office in Cedar Falls.”
My old hometown.
“Who authorized it?”
“The request used the identification of a woman named Linda Carter.”
My mother’s name.
The kitchen seemed to tilt.
“My mother is dead.”
“I know.”
“She died in a hospice. I was there.”
“Then someone used her identity.”
I pressed a hand against the table.
“Why?”
“To make the request appear legitimate.”
“Did they succeed?”
“No. The account requires the phrase and an in-person signature from you.”
“So they need me alive.”
The words came before I could stop them.
Marcus was silent.
“Emily, no one is suggesting otherwise.”
“I know. I’m tired.”
“You have every reason to be.”
I looked toward the hallway where Annie slept.
“What would you do?”
“With the account?”
“With all of it.”
He thought for a moment.
“I would begin by separating what is urgent from what is merely frightening.”
“What is urgent?”
“Your safety and your daughter’s.”
“And the rest?”
“The money can remain untouched. The documents will still exist tomorrow. You do not have to solve your father’s life tonight.”
It was the first useful advice anyone had given me.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not telling me what decision to make.”
“I run a company. I spend most of my day telling people what decisions to make.”
“Then you’re showing remarkable restraint.”
He laughed softly.
“I am trying to make a good impression.”
My heart gave an inconvenient little movement.
Before I could answer, the building intercom buzzed.
I stood.
“Someone is downstairs.”
“Is Rachel expecting anyone?”
“No.”
“Do not open the door.”
I walked into the living room.
Rachel emerged from her bedroom.
The intercom buzzed again.
One of the security officers called Daniel, then came upstairs. Through the window, we watched him speak to someone on the sidewalk.
A woman stood beneath the streetlamp.
She appeared to be in her sixties, with a dark wool coat and a red scarf.
She held a small suitcase.
Marcus remained on the phone.
“What is happening?”
“There’s a woman outside.”
“Do you recognize her?”
“No.”
The security officer called Rachel.
She answered, listened, then looked at me.
“She says her name is Helen Ward.”
My breath stopped.
I knew that name.
Not well.
It appeared on the back of a childhood photograph my mother had kept hidden in a Bible.
Linda and Helen, 1993.
Two young women stood beside a lake, smiling into the sun.
“Let her in,” I said.
Marcus’s voice sharpened through the phone.
“Emily.”
“I know her name.”
“That is not the same as knowing her.”
But something inside me had already made the decision.
The security officer searched the suitcase and escorted Helen upstairs.
When she entered the apartment, she looked at me for a long time.
Tears filled her eyes.
“You look like him,” she said.
“My father?”
She nodded.
Rachel closed the door.
Helen’s gaze moved toward the hallway.
“And the baby?”
“My daughter.”
Helen covered her mouth.
For a moment, she seemed unable to speak.
I kept Marcus on the line but lowered the phone.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Helen Ward. Your mother was my sister.”
I had no aunt named Helen.
“My mother was an only child.”
“That is what she told you.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
I was beginning to hate that phrase.
“From whom?”
Helen sat on the edge of the chair.
“From the people connected to Hartwell.”
Rachel placed a glass of water before her.
Helen did not touch it.
“Jonathan discovered what the company was doing,” she said. “He tried to expose it. When he realized evidence was disappearing, he hid the money.”
“The fourteen million dollars?”
“It was not his.”
“Whose was it?”
“Investors. Patients. Families whose information had been sold.”
I stared at her.
