Chapter 16 Carter #2
The food arrives, breaking the moment. My mother directs the conversation toward safer territory—a friend's daughter's wedding.
I catch Kate’s eye across the table, raising an eyebrow in silent question. She shakes her head minutely and looks away.
Dessert is a chocolate torte with my mother's name written in raspberry coulis. We sing happy birthday. My father presents her with a gift: sapphire earrings, my mother’s favorite stone. She exclaims over them with perfect delight and kisses his cheek.
Kate excuses herself before coffee.
"Early meeting tomorrow," she says, not meeting anyone's eyes. "Happy birthday, Mom. I'll call you this week."
She kisses my mother, squeezes my shoulder as she passes, and walks out without acknowledging our father at all.
The silence she leaves behind is deafening.
"Well." My father's voice is carefully neutral. "Kate seems to be in a mood."
"She's been working hard," my mother says. "The foundation board is very demanding."
"The foundation board." My father's laugh is short and humorless. "Is that what we're calling it now?"
"Not tonight." My mother's voice has an edge I rarely hear. "It's my birthday. Whatever this is, it can wait."
My father looks at her for a long moment, then he nods and signals for the check.
"Of course. You're right. I’m sorry, my dear."
He's charming again after that, warm and solicitous as he helps my mother with her coat, as he guides her through the restaurant with his hand on the small of her back.
Outside, the valet brings our cars around. My father's town car first, then mine. He kisses my mother goodbye—she'll ride with me; he has calls to make—and clasps my shoulder.
"Good to see you, son. Keep up the good work on the campaign."
"Thanks, Dad."
"And don't worry about Kate. She'll come around. She always does."
He says it with such certainty.
"Good night, Dad."
He nods and slides into his car. I watch it pull away, then turn to my mother.
"Ready?"
She doesn't answer immediately. She's standing very still, watching my father's taillights disappear around the corner. In the glow of the restaurant's entrance, she looks older than I usually think of her.
"Mom?"
"Let's go home, darling."
The drive to the estate takes forty minutes. For the first twenty, we don't speak.
My mother stares out the window at the passing darkness. Her hands are folded in her lap, perfectly still, but I can see the tension in her shoulders.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I ask finally.
"About what?"
"Whatever's going on with Kate. The whole dinner felt like walking on eggshells."
She's quiet for a long moment. I think she's going to deflect—my mother is a master of deflection, of redirecting conversations away from anything uncomfortable. It's a survival skill, I think, honed over thirty-five years of being a Crane.
"Pull over," she says quietly.
"What?"
"Pull over, Carter. There's a rest stop ahead. I need to—" She stops, pressing her fingers to her temples. "I need to tell you something, and I can't do it while you're driving."
My stomach drops. I signal and ease the car into the rest stop—a small parking area with a few picnic tables, deserted at this hour. I put the car in park but leave the engine running, the air conditioner humming against burgeoning summer heat.
My mother doesn't look at me. She's staring straight ahead, her profile lit by the dashboard glow.
"What I'm about to tell you stays between us. Do you understand? Not Warren. Not anyone."
"Okay."
"I mean it, Carter. This cannot leave this car."
"I understand."
She takes a breath. Lets it out slowly. Her hands are still folded in her lap, but now I can see them trembling slightly.
"Your father has identified the source. The person who gave Jamie Dean the documents."
Everything stops. The air in the car feels suddenly thick.
"He told me he got it wrong. That his lead didn't pan out."
"He lied. He's known for months. He just didn't want you to know because—" She stops, and when she speaks again, her voice is barely above a whisper. "Because it's Kate."
The word doesn't make sense. I hear it, but it doesn't compute.
"What?"
"Kate was the source. Kate gave Dean everything. The financial records, the offshore accounts, the correspondence. All of it."
"That's not possible."
"I wish it weren't." My mother finally turns to look at me, and her eyes are bright with unshed tears. "Your father confronted her while you were away. That trip you took in January, the off-grid retreat? There was a confrontation. Kate admitted everything."
January. The cabin. I was with Jamie while my father was confronting Kate about being Jamie's source.
The irony is so bitter I almost laugh.
"Why?" The word comes out hoarse. "Why would she do that?"
"She says—" My mother's voice wavers. "She says she did it because it was the right thing to do. Because she couldn't watch your father keep getting away with things."
"What things?"
"She wouldn't tell me. She just kept saying that Jamie Dean didn't know the half of it."
My mind is racing. Kate. My sister. The source that Jamie protected, that he refused to name even when Warren's smear campaign was destroying his reputation. Kate.
"Does Warren know?"
"No. And he can't. Your father made me promise. He said if Warren found out—" She stops, shaking her head. "We keep this in the family."
I reach over and take her hand. It's cold despite the car's heater.
"Why are you telling me?"
She squeezes my fingers. "Because you deserve to know. You believe him. I can see it. Every time you say the same thing about having full faith in the investigation to clear everything, you believe it. It’s not fair that you’re kept in the dark, but your father said you’d be better if you didn’t know. Plausible deniability, and all that."
I think about Kate at the tennis court, months ago, asking if I was okay. Kate, who apparently knows things about our family that made her willing to burn it all down.
"I need to talk to her."
"Please don’t." My mother's grip tightens. "Give it time. Let things settle. If your father finds out you know, if he thinks you're siding with Kate—"
"I'm not siding with anyone. I just want to understand."
"I know. But understanding can wait. Right now, I need you to keep this to yourself. Can you do that?"
I don't want to. I want to drive to Kate's apartment right now and demand answers. I want to know what made her so certain that exposing our family was worth the cost.
But my mother is looking at me with such exhaustion that I can't refuse her.
"I can do that."
"Thank you." She releases my hand and turns back to face forward. "We should go. It's late."
I put the car in drive and pull back onto the highway.
We don't speak for the rest of the drive. My mother stares out the window, lost in her own thoughts. I focus on the road, on the mechanical act of driving, because if I think too hard about what she just told me, I'll fall apart.