Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Glass
I wanted to interrogate Emma.
I did not.
That may have been the first useful thing I did all night.
I sat beside hospital bed and placed phone facedown.
“Tell me what you need.”
“Change locks.”
“Yes.”
“Tonight.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t tell your mother where they discharge me.”
“Done.”
“Save pictures.”
“I already backed them up.”
Her shoulders dropped slightly.
Then:
“Was the older injury from Mom?”
“Yes.”
I closed eyes.
Six weeks.
I had slept beside Emma for six weeks and not known.
“How?”
“She came in while you were at site.”
I managed construction projects for a regional engineering firm. That month I had been working twelve-hour days on hospital expansion forty minutes away.
Margaret knew.
“She used emergency key?”
“Yes.”
“What did she want?”
“To see nursery.”
“That’s it?”
Emma looked at wristband.
“No.”
“What?”
“She was looking for something.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“A blue ledger.”
I knew immediately.
Dad’s.
Thomas Carter had died four years earlier after pancreatic cancer.
He had been founder of Carter Coastal Foods, a private seafood distributor worth somewhere around sixteen million dollars.
After death, his office boxes came to me.
Most sat unopened in attic.
One box contained a worn blue bookkeeping ledger.
I had seen it once.
Never read beyond first pages.
“Why would Mom want Dad’s ledger?”
Emma whispered:
“She thinks I gave it to Rebecca.”
“Rebecca who?”
She looked at me strangely.
Then:
“Your aunt.”
I laughed because answer made no sense.
“Aunt Rebecca died.”
Emma did not answer.
A nurse entered.
Vital signs.
Baby monitoring reassuring.
Dr. Pierce later said Emma had bruised ribs but no fracture, soft-tissue injuries, small oral cut, no evidence of placental abruption at that time.
She wanted observation.
Good.
Then I opened dinner photographs.
Plate by plate.
Six normal servings.
Emma’s plate was different.
Fish meat pushed aside.
Bones arranged in pile.
Chair angled.
Water spilled.
Then photo taken near glass cabinet.
Reflection.
A woman outside patio doors.
Silver-streaked hair.
Dark coat.
Phone raised.
“Emma.”
She looked.
“Do you know that woman?”
Her face drained.
She took phone.
Zoomed.
“That’s Rebecca.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My aunt Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
“She died three years ago.”
Emma swallowed.
“That’s what your mother told everyone.”
I enlarged further.
The face was distorted by glass.
Older than photographs I remembered.
But something about eyes.
Then silver brooch on coat.
A crescent shape.
Rebecca had worn one at every family wedding when I was child.
My heart began pounding.
“How do you know her?”
Emma looked terrified for different reason.
“She contacted me.”
“What?”
“Two weeks ago.”
I stood.
Then forced myself sit.
“Why?”
“She said your mother would eventually come looking for ledger.”
“You talked to a woman you thought was dead and didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t know what was true.”
“Emma.”
“She told me you might choose them.”
That hurt.
“I wouldn’t.”
“You didn’t know your mother had been coming into our house.”
Silence.
Fair.
Then:
“Did Rebecca come to dinner because of you?”
“No.”
“I didn’t know she was there.”
“Then why?”
Emma looked toward door.
“I think Aunt Susan called her.”
My phone rang.
Unknown.
I almost ignored.
Answered.
“Daniel?”
A woman.
Older voice.
Familiar in a place memory could not immediately reach.
“Yes.”
“My name is Rebecca Carter.”
I stopped breathing.
“My mother told me you were dead.”
“I know.”
“What the hell is going on?”
Rebecca exhaled.
“I’m not dead. I never was.”
“Why were you outside?”
“Susan called me at 8:51. She said Margaret had taken Emma’s phone and Caleb was blocking door.”
“You filmed?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come in?”
“Because your mother would have turned room into argument about me. I needed record.”
“Did you call police?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Emma.
No officers had arrived because we left before? Rebecca said response came after departure, maybe family told no crime? We'll get.
Then:
“Daniel, your mother has been telling people I died because it was easier than explaining why I left.”
“Why did you leave?”
Silence.
Then:
“Because I discovered Caleb and Margaret were using your father’s descendant trust to guarantee loans to their own property company.”
My head swam.
“What trust?”
“The one that changes trustees when your first child is born.”
I looked at Emma’s belly.
Rebecca continued:
“Your baby is due in six weeks.”
Then:
“And when that baby is born, an independent trustee gets five years of books.”
Everything at dinner suddenly felt darker.
Then Rebecca said:
May you like
“Your mother wasn’t trying to teach Emma respect.”
“She was trying to find out whether your wife had your father’s ledger before the audit starts.”
