Chương 12
He knew the long downward stroke on the capital L.
He knew the crooked way the writer crossed a lowercase t too high.
He had seen both on grocery lists, birthday cards, and notes tucked into his lunch years ago.
Mara saw his face.
“What?”
Daniel handed the phone back as if it had become hot.
“That isn’t Lily’s handwriting.”
Caroline watched him carefully.
“Do you recognize it?”
Daniel looked toward the stairs, where his daughter slept beneath a quilt Mara’s mother had made.
Then he looked again at the photograph of the note that had supposedly been hidden in his basement months earlier.
“Yes.”
His voice barely carried.
“It’s Rachel’s.”
For several seconds, the only sound in Mara’s living room was the old refrigerator cycling off in the kitchen.
Daniel reached for Aaron’s phone again.
“Let me see it.”
Aaron handed it back.
Daniel enlarged the photograph until the handwriting blurred into pixels, then reduced it again.
Rachel’s capital R had always leaned backward, as though the rest of the word were moving too fast for it.
The note had the same backward R in Mara’s name.
“That’s hers.”
Mara was staring at the screen over his shoulder.
“Daniel.”
“I know her handwriting.”
“She’s been dead five years.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Then how was that in your basement?”
“I don’t know.”
Caroline held out her hand for the phone.
“Before anybody draws conclusions, we need to establish whether the note is actually old.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You think Vanessa wrote it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“She couldn’t imitate Rachel’s handwriting this well.”
“Could she have had access to samples?”
Daniel’s answer came too quickly.
“No.”
Then he remembered the hall closet.
Rachel’s old birthday cards were there, along with tax records, photographs, Lily’s baby book, and two boxes Daniel had not opened since moving them from his previous house.
Vanessa had reorganized the closet in January.
“Yes.”
Mara swore under her breath.
Daniel shook his head.
“That doesn’t mean she did it.”
“No,” Caroline said.
“It doesn’t.”
Aaron took his phone back.
“Vanessa says she found the bag June eighteenth.”
“How does she know the date?”
“She photographed it.”
Aaron opened another image.
The metadata showed June 18 at 10:42 a.m.
Daniel stared at the date.
He had been in Richmond that week.
He remembered because Lily’s summer day camp had started Monday and Vanessa had complained about the pickup line.
“Where was Lily?”
“At camp.”
“According to Vanessa.”
Aaron nodded.
Daniel looked at Caroline.
“So Vanessa was alone in my house when she supposedly discovered a bag containing a note warning me not to trust Vanessa.”
“That is one fact we have.”
“That’s more than a fact.”
“It is still not a conclusion.”
Mara sat on the arm of the couch.
“I’m beginning to dislike how reasonable you are.”
Caroline gave her a tired glance.
“It’s not always popular.”
Daniel walked to the bottom of the stairs.
The blue bedroom door remained closed.
“Lily knew where the bag was.”
“That’s what Vanessa reported.”
“How?”
“We don’t know.”
“Rachel couldn’t have put it there.”
Caroline asked, “Why not?”
Daniel turned.
“Because we didn’t live in that house when Rachel was alive.”
The room changed.
Aaron stopped writing.
Mara straightened.
Caroline’s expression remained controlled, but Daniel saw the shift in her attention.
“When did you buy the house?”
“Three years ago.”
“And Rachel died five years ago?”
“Yes.”
“So the note could be hers, but she could not have placed it in that basement.”
“Correct.”
Mara said, “Unless the bag came from the old house.”
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
“You had boxes everywhere when you moved.”
“That bag wasn’t in a box.”
“You don’t know where it was before Vanessa found it.”
Daniel started to dismiss the idea, then stopped.
Rachel had packed emergency bags once.
Not because of Vanessa, obviously, but because a hurricane had threatened the coast during the year before Lily was born.
Rachel had been the kind of person who bought batteries before everyone else and kept photocopies of insurance documents in waterproof sleeves.
He could see her kneeling on the floor of their old apartment, arguing that Daniel’s idea of emergency preparation consisted of knowing which neighbor owned a generator.
The memory hurt with an intimacy that made him angry.
“She might have written something about Mara.”
“What?” Mara asked.
“An emergency note.”
“Warning you about Vanessa before you met Vanessa?”
“No.”
Daniel rubbed his face.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Caroline looked at Aaron.
“We need the original note preserved exactly as it is.”
“It’s at the house,” Daniel said.
“With the bag.”
Caroline nodded.
“Nobody goes there tonight to retrieve it.”
Daniel looked at her sharply.
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know who handled what, and Vanessa has already left.”
“It’s my house.”
“And tomorrow you can arrange access.”
“I have access now.”
“Daniel.”
He hated how often people were saying his name tonight.
Mara stood.
“She’s right.”
He looked at her.
“I hate that too,” Mara added.
Upstairs, a door opened.
Lily came down carrying one of the decorative pillows.
Her hair had been brushed, though badly, and Daniel wondered if she had done it herself.
“Can I have water?”
Mara immediately went to the kitchen.
Lily stopped when she saw the adults.
“What happened?”
“Nothing you need to fix,” Daniel said.
She studied his face.
“Did Vanessa come back?”
“No.”
Mara handed her a glass.
Lily drank half of it without stopping.
Daniel watched her and thought of the hidden food, the flashlight, the cash.
“Do you remember Grandma’s old house?”
Lily lowered the glass.
Caroline’s head turned toward him.
Daniel saw the warning and stopped himself.
“Never mind.”
Lily frowned.
“What old house?”
“The one Dad lived in before our house,” Mara said.
“You were little.”
“Oh.”
Lily drank again.
“Did it have the scary basement?”
Daniel looked at her.
“What scary basement?”
“The one with the red stairs.”
May you like
Mara said, “That was Mom’s old place on Fulton.”
Daniel remembered it.
