Chương 11
“That’s what you’d do?”
Rebecca’s expression hardened.
“That’s what someone who has spent months feeding you mixed evidence might do.”
Patel pointed toward the screen.
“Can you verify when this video was created?”
Mara opened the file information.
The creation timestamp showed two days earlier, but she no longer trusted timestamps.
The location metadata was empty.
There was no device information.
Evan bent toward the screen.
“What’s behind him?”
A gray metal shelf.
Cardboard archive boxes.
A red fire extinguisher cabinet.
Part of a sign was visible near Caleb’s shoulder.
Only three letters could be read.
RTH.
Rebecca stared at them.
Mara saw recognition again.
“You know it.”
“No.”
“Rebecca.”
“I’m thinking.”
“You make the same face when you lie and when you think.”
“That seems like poor design on my part.”
Daniel came closer.
“Could be NORTH.”
Everyone looked at him.
He pointed at the fragment.
“The letters.”
Mara enlarged the frame.
A sliver of another letter appeared before the R.
Possibly O.
Evan said, “North what?”
Daniel shrugged.
“North wing.”
Rebecca’s face changed.
Mara caught it.
“Bellweather had wings.”
Rebecca said nothing.
“Didn’t it?”
“The old floor plan labeled two corridors north and south.”
Patel asked, “How do you know that?”
“Caleb showed me.”
Evan stared at her.
“You have a remarkable number of things Caleb showed you that you forgot to mention.”
“I was protecting a source.”
“He’s my brother.”
“He was my source.”
“Was?”
The word silenced her.
Evan stepped closer.
“You said was.”
Rebecca’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Mara watched the blood leave Evan’s face.
“What haven’t you told him?”
Rebecca looked at Patel.
Then at Mara.
Finally at Evan.
“Caleb believed he might not come back.”
Evan’s voice became quiet.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“He left instructions with me.”
“What instructions?”
“If he disappeared, I was supposed to get Mara to a safe location and wait forty-eight hours.”
“Wait for what?”
“A release.”
“What release?”
“I don’t know.”
Evan slammed his hand onto the table.
The laptop jumped.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because Caleb compartmentalized everything.”
“You let my brother walk into this.”
“I told him not to.”
“Did you call me?”
“No.”
“His mother?”
“No.”
“The police?”
“No.”
“He has a kid.”
Rebecca flinched.
That was the first accusation that reached somewhere beneath her professional defenses.
“I know.”
“No, you know his name.”
Evan’s voice cracked.
“You don’t know what it’s like when Noah waits by the window because Caleb said six and it becomes six-thirty.”
Rebecca looked down.
Evan continued.
“You don’t know that Caleb buys the wrong cereal every single week because he refuses to admit there are two kinds of Cheerios.”
“Evan.”
“You knew he was afraid and you did nothing.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“I helped him.”
“That’s not better.”
“No.”
She swallowed.
“It isn’t.”
The room quieted.
The refrigerator clicked off.
From the living room came the faint murmur of the second officer speaking into his radio.
Mara looked at Caleb’s bruised face.
“Forty-eight hours from when?”
Rebecca took out her phone.
“From the moment he missed a scheduled check-in.”
“When was that?”
“Yesterday at noon.”
Mara checked the clock.
They had a little over thirteen hours.
“What happens then?”
“I receive an email.”
“From Caleb?”
“An automated account.”
“What’s in it?”
“He said I would know what to do.”
Evan gave a short, exhausted laugh.
“Apparently my brother became unbearable while I wasn’t paying attention.”
Mara looked at the password question again.
Something about its wording bothered her.
Not what did you ask.
What did Mara ask.
Third person.
Built for someone other than Mara to answer.
“Caleb didn’t expect me to remember.”
Rebecca looked at the screen.
“What?”
“He expected someone else to know.”
Daniel said, “Your mother?”
“She’s dead.”
“Someone from Bellweather,” Evan said.
Mara looked at the photograph.
The message on the back.
SHE ASKED TWICE.
Someone had supplied the clue.
Not to frighten her.
To get them through the password.
Patel seemed to arrive at the same conclusion.
“The envelope may have been assistance.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Or another instruction.”
Mara picked up the evidence sleeve by its edge after Patel allowed her to look more closely.
She studied the photograph.
Her younger self sat in the bed with both hands visible.
No wedding ring.
No hospital bracelet visible from that angle.
On a tray beside the bed sat a plastic cup, a folded towel, and a small rectangular object.
Mara squinted.
“Can we enlarge this?”
Patel photographed the photograph with her department phone and zoomed in.
The rectangle was a cassette recorder.
Daniel frowned.
“Who was using cassettes nine years ago?”
“Clinics with old equipment,” Rebecca said.
“Or someone recording therapy sessions.”
Mara felt the smell again.
Orange soap.
Warm plastic.
Then a sound joined it.
A click.
Tape engaging.
A woman saying, Tell me what you need.
Mara gripped the counter.
Rebecca noticed.
“What?”
Mara did not answer.
The memory came in fragments that refused to arrange themselves.
Blue wall.
Her mother sitting in a chair.
A woman in white sneakers.
Mara’s own voice, hoarse from crying.
I want the tape.
Then her mother saying, Not yet.
Mara pressed both palms against the counter.
“I asked for a recording.”
Patel said, “You remember that?”
“I remember asking for a tape.”
Rebecca moved closer.
“Once?”
Mara shut her eyes.
The second memory came with anger.
A hallway.
Her mother gripping her elbow.
Mara pulling away.
Give me the tape.
Please, Mom.
Just give me the tape.
She opened her eyes.
“Twice.”
Evan was already at the keyboard.
Patel stopped him.
“Mara enters it.”
Mara typed TAPE.
The password box disappeared.
The video resumed.
Caleb looked down for several seconds.
When he raised his head, there was blood at the corner of his mouth.
“If you got this far, you found the clue.”
He breathed carefully.
“The tape is why all of this started.”
Rebecca whispered, “What tape?”
Caleb continued.
May you like
“Bellweather wasn’t hiding a birth.”
Mara’s hand went cold on the mouse.
