Chapter 6
Rosa came to the clinic after dark.
I saw her through the downstairs window, standing beneath the parking lot light with one hand wrapped around the other. Her uniform-like clothing was hidden beneath a plain coat, but I knew her posture immediately—the slight bend in her shoulders, the careful way she protected her swollen fingers.
I went downstairs before Nora could stop me.
“You shouldn't be here,” I said.
Rosa looked past me at the locked clinic door. “Neither should you.”
“I have two locks now.”
“That won't stop someone who thinks doors are suggestions.”
She tried to smile, but it didn't last.
Nora brought us into a consultation room and left the door open. Rosa sat with her injured hand resting on the table. I sat across from her, keeping space between our chairs.
“Daniel said you chose against me,” I said.
“Daniel says what makes people move where he wants them.”
“Did you tell him where I went?”
“No.”
“Did Margaret?”
Rosa's eyes dropped. “Margaret told him I gave you the key.”
I touched the brass key through my pocket. “How did she know?”
“She saw me take it from the desk.”
The room held the soft hum of the heating vent.
“What does it open?” I asked.
“A drawer in Richard's study.”
I waited.
Rosa looked toward the open door. “The drawer was locked for years. Richard kept copies of important papers there. Margaret knew about the drawer, but she never found the key.”
“Why didn't you tell me before?”
“Because I was afraid.”
There was no excuse in her voice. Only fatigue.
I understood it more than I wanted to.
“What did you see after Richard died?” I asked.
Rosa rubbed her thumb against the edge of her bandage. “Margaret went into the study before Daniel came back from the city. She stayed there nearly an hour. When she came out, she had a folder.”
“What folder?”
“Brown. The same kind as the one Mr. Vale carried.”
“Did you see the receipt?”
“No. But I saw a carbon copy tucked inside the folder. It had Margaret's name and a date.”
“The receipt.”
“Maybe.”
“Rosa, I need you to be sure.”
She met my eyes. “I am sure of what I saw. I am not sure what it means.”
That mattered. She wasn't trying to give me a perfect answer.
“Did Daniel know about the folder?”
“He asked her why she was taking papers. She said she was protecting the family.”
“What did he say?”
Rosa looked toward the window. “He said, ‘If the child inherits, everything changes.’”
My hand moved to my stomach.
“Was I there?”
“No. You were upstairs.”
“And Margaret?”
“She told him the law would favor blood if they let it. Then she said Richard had made a mistake by trusting anyone outside the family.”
I thought of the words from the balcony: That child isn't inheriting anything.
The sentence had not begun there. It had only become loud enough for me to hear.
Rosa reached into her coat and took out a folded copy of a work schedule. The paper was worn at the creases.
“I kept this because Margaret said I was off the property that afternoon,” she said.
The schedule showed Rosa's name beside the date of Richard's death, marked with a handwritten note: Not present.
“But you were there,” I said.
“I cleaned the study that morning. I saw Margaret arrive before noon.”
“Why would she claim you weren't there?”
Rosa's injured fingers curled slowly. “Because she didn't want anyone to say I could identify what she carried out.”
I photographed the schedule.
A car door slammed outside.
Rosa went still.
Through the window, a dark sedan had pulled into the lot. I couldn't see the driver clearly, but the headlights remained on.
Nora entered and closed the consultation room door. “The car has been there for three minutes.”
Rosa's breathing shortened.
“Is it Daniel?” I asked.
“I don't know.”
Evan called while we watched the sedan. I answered on speaker.
“Emily, don't approach the vehicle,” he said. “I'm contacting the sheriff's office.”
“I don't want Rosa taken back.”
“She won't be.”
The sedan reversed and left before anyone arrived.
Rosa stared at the empty space. “I should go.”
“No.”
“If Margaret finds out I came here—”
“She already knows you helped me.”
Rosa's face tightened with pain. “Then I have nothing left to lose.”
“You have your testimony.”
She looked at me for a long time.
“I can't promise I won't be afraid,” she said.
“You don't have to promise that.”
“What do you need?”
“The truth. Exactly as you remember it. No more and no less.”
Rosa nodded.
Evan arrived twenty minutes later with a deputy and a sealed evidence bag. He asked Rosa whether she wanted to make a statement tonight. She said no. He accepted it without argument.
Before she left, she pressed the brass key into my palm.
“Use it only when someone can witness what you find,” she said.
I closed my fingers around it.
May you like
For the first time, Rosa wasn't asking me to endure something quietly. She was helping me choose the next step.
The locked drawer waited somewhere inside the house, and now Margaret had another reason to keep me away from it.
