Chapter 6: Ask Her About Claire
Rosa read the message twice.
"Do you know that number?" she asked.
"No." The Father set the phone face-down.
Then picked it up again.
"No, I don't."
"Someone sent it immediately after she left."
"I know."
He stood up and walked to the window.
The garden was empty.
The pool surface had gone still, as though nothing had happened.
The stroller was still on the patio where Rosa had left it when she ran.
"What does it mean?" Rosa asked.
"Ask her about Claire."
"I don't know." He didn't turn around.
"Claire died fourteen months ago.
Heart failure.
She was thirty-seven years old and she had no history of heart problems and she was gone in six hours." His voice was even and careful, the voice of a man who had told this story enough times that he had learned to carry it without spilling it.
"The doctors said it was an undetected condition.
Sudden.
Nothing anyone could have done."
Rosa waited.
"Vivienne was with her that afternoon," he said.
"They had lunch.
Claire came home and said she felt tired.
She lay down.
She didn't wake up."
The room was very quiet.
"Vivienne was the one who found her," the Father said.
"She had come back to check on her.
She called the ambulance.
She stayed until I got home." He turned from the window.
"She has told me, many times, that she blames herself for not staying longer the first time.
For leaving when Claire said she was only tired."
Rosa looked at the phone on the table.
"Someone wants you to ask her something," Rosa said carefully.
"Something about that afternoon."
"Or someone wants to cause trouble." He sat back down.
"Vivienne has enemies.
People who resent her money, her connections.
This could be nothing."
"It could be," Rosa said.
He looked at her.
"But you don't think so."
She didn't answer immediately.
She thought about the patio.
The distance between Vivienne and the stroller.
The way Vivienne had known about the Hargrove house — not as a rumor, but as a weapon, already sharpened, already aimed.
The way she had arrived forty minutes early.
The way she had smiled when the Father came running.
"I think," Rosa said slowly, "that she came here today with a plan.
And I think the stroller was part of it."
The Father was very still.
"I think she wanted to be the one who saved him," Rosa said.
"I think she wanted you to see her do it.
And I think she didn't expect me to get there first."
The Father stood up abruptly and walked to the back door.
He stood looking out at the pool for a long moment.
"If that's true," he said, without turning around, "then she put my son in that water."
Rosa said nothing.
The Baby on the mat had fallen asleep, one cheek pressed against the soft toy, one small fist open beside his face.
"I need to know who sent that message," the Father said.
He picked up his phone and dialed.
Rosa heard it ring twice, then a woman's voice.
"Margaret," he said.
"I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me."
A pause.
"The afternoon Claire died," he said.
"You told me you saw Vivienne leaving the house.
What time was that?"
Another pause.
Longer.
His hand tightened on the phone.
"Are you certain?" he said.
"Because that's two hours earlier than she told me."
May you like
Rosa looked at her hands.
The tea in the mug had gone cold.
