Chương 12
“What did he look like?”
Laura shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel’s frustration rose.
“Laura, try.”
“I am trying.”
“Hair, height, voice, anything.”
She pressed her eyes closed.
Mara said, “Back off.”
“I need one thing.”
“She just gave you one.”
“No, she gave me a man in a jacket.”
Laura suddenly opened her eyes.
“His hand.”
Daniel stopped.
“What about it?”
“When he handed me the bottle.”
Her breathing changed.
“There was something on his hand.”
“A tattoo?”
“No.”
“A ring?”
Laura stared past him, concentrating.
Then her face went still.
“A burn.”
Daniel felt Mara look at him.
Laura touched the base of her own left thumb.
“Here.”
Daniel’s stomach dropped.
He knew only one person with a burn scar in that exact place.
A pale crescent left by molten packing plastic during a conveyor accident three years earlier.
Mara saw the recognition on his face.
“Who?”
Daniel looked toward the closed door.
Then back at Laura.
“My supervisor.”
Laura stared at him as if the answer had made the room less stable.
“Your supervisor came here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I said I know someone with that scar.”
Daniel pulled his phone from his pocket.
Mara stood.
“Who are you calling?”
“Gavin.”
“Don’t.”
Daniel looked at her.
“If he was in this room pretending to be me—”
“And what are you going to say?”
He already had the contact open.
Mara reached for the phone.
Daniel moved it away.
“Don’t touch me.”
Laura flinched.
The reaction stopped him more effectively than Mara could have.
He looked at his wife.
She was holding Owen tighter now, her forearm curved protectively around his body.
Daniel lowered the phone.
“Okay.”
Laura’s shoulders remained tense.
“I’m not calling him.”
Mara exhaled.
Daniel sat in the chair again.
The name on his screen remained visible.
GAVIN COLE.
His supervisor had called twice that morning.
Daniel had assumed it was about his leave.
He opened the call history.
There were more calls than he remembered.
Gavin had called Tuesday at 6:18 a.m., Wednesday at 2:07 p.m., Thursday at 9:41 a.m., and twice today.
Daniel scrolled farther.
Monday night showed an outgoing call from Daniel to Gavin at 10:38.
Duration: four minutes, eleven seconds.
Laura was watching him.
“What?”
“I called him Monday.”
“You call him all the time.”
“Not usually at ten thirty at night.”
Mara sat back down.
“Why did you?”
Daniel searched the evening.
Laura had been uncomfortable and irritable.
A fetal monitor had slipped twice.
He had eaten crackers from a vending machine for dinner.
At some point, Gavin had texted him about the Wednesday staffing schedule.
“I told him I wouldn’t be coming in.”
“That was the call?”
“I think.”
Laura’s expression tightened.
“You told him I was here.”
“He knew you were pregnant.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at the phone.
“I told him we were at St. Anne’s.”
Mara said, “Did you tell him the room?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
He hated the answer, but Ruth’s advice had become an unwanted voice in his head.
Tell the truth.
Even the useless, ugly parts.
Especially those.
Laura shifted Owen.
“Why would your boss come to my hospital room?”
Daniel did not have an answer that did not sound insane.
“He wouldn’t.”
Mara frowned.
“You just said—”
“I mean I don’t know why he would.”
Daniel opened Gavin’s contact again.
His thumb hovered over the call button.
“I need to tell Harris.”
He stepped into the hallway.
Harris was speaking to another security employee near the nurses’ station.
Daniel waited until he finished.
“I have a name.”
Harris’s attention sharpened.
“A name for what?”
“The person Laura remembers.”
Daniel explained the burn scar and gave Gavin’s full name.
Harris took notes.
“Does Mr. Cole know your wife?”
“They’ve met.”
“When?”
“A company picnic last summer.”
“Any other time?”
“Maybe once when she picked me up from work.”
“Would he know she was here Monday?”
“Yes.”
Harris looked up.
“How?”
“I told him.”
“Did you invite him?”
“No.”
“Did Laura?”
“Not that I know of.”
Harris wrote something else.
“Do you have a photograph?”
Daniel searched Gavin’s name online.
The warehouse had posted employee pictures after a charity food drive in May.
He found one showing Gavin beside three workers holding cardboard boxes.
Gavin was forty-six, thick through the shoulders, with sandy hair going gray at the temples.
Daniel enlarged the image.
The burn scar was not visible.
Harris sent himself the link.
“Do not contact him.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Compare what we can compare.”
“With the elevator footage?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel almost protested.
Instead, he nodded.
Harris looked mildly surprised.
Daniel returned to Laura’s room.
Owen had begun fussing.
Laura tried shifting him against her shoulder.
His cries sharpened.
“He’s hungry,” Daniel said.
“I know.”
“There’s formula in the bag.”
Laura looked at him.
The moment was small, but Daniel felt something underneath it.
“He’s on formula?”
“They supplemented him.”
“I know they supplemented him.”
“Then yes.”
“You said you were going to try the donor milk.”
Daniel blinked.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“I said I’d ask.”
“And?”
“It wasn’t available the way we thought.”
Laura looked down at Owen.
“You could’ve told me.”
“You were unconscious.”
The sentence came out before Daniel could soften it.
Laura’s face closed.
Mara stood.
“I’m going to find coffee.”
Neither of them stopped her.
Daniel retrieved one of Ruth’s formula bottles.
He washed his hands at the sink, opened a sterile nipple package, and attached it.
When he turned, Laura held out her hand.
“I can feed him.”
Daniel gave her the bottle.
She positioned Owen awkwardly at first.
Her hands were weak.
Daniel moved forward instinctively, then stopped.
“His head needs to be a little higher.”
Laura adjusted him.
“Like this?”
“Yeah.”
Owen latched.
Laura’s expression changed.
The tension left her mouth.
May you like
Daniel sat across from her.
For several minutes, they watched their son eat.
