Chương 10
Daniel glanced at Sophie.
“Not here.”
“She is already here.”
“That doesn’t mean she should hear everything on a train platform.”
For once, Evelyn agreed with him.
Sophie did not.
“I’m not leaving.”
“Nobody said you were.”
“You’re doing the adult voice.”
“What adult voice?”
“The one where everybody decides I’m furniture.”
Martin crouched beside her.
“How about you remain non-furniture while we relocate somewhere without trains?”
Sophie considered him.
“Can I have hot chocolate?”
“At this hour?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely.”
Evelyn stared at him.
“What?”
“She has survived enough responsible decisions for one evening.”
A transit officer led them to a staff room near the station office.
It contained a scarred table, six plastic chairs, a microwave with a handwritten warning not to heat fish, and a coffee machine that looked older than Sophie.
Martin returned from a vending kiosk with hot chocolate that Sophie declared tasted like warm cardboard.
She drank it anyway.
Daniel sat across the room under Bell’s supervision.
Ortiz spoke quietly on her phone near the door.
Evelyn sat beside Sophie.
Her knee had progressed from trembling to throbbing.
Sophie noticed.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“You lie.”
“So does everybody, according to Sergeant Ortiz.”
Sophie almost smiled.
Evelyn looked at her cup.
“Is it truly terrible?”
“Do you want some?”
“Not remotely.”
“That means yes.”
Sophie handed it over.
Evelyn took a cautious sip and immediately regretted it.
“This is an offense against chocolate.”
Sophie smiled properly this time.
Across the room, Daniel watched them.
His face did something Evelyn disliked because she recognized it.
He looked excluded.
She had spent four years making that expression in rooms where Caroline’s name was not spoken.
It did not make him innocent.
It made him human, which was less convenient.
Ortiz ended her call.
“We found the storage facility.”
Everyone looked up.
“Unit Forty-Two is rented to Caroline Mercer.”
“Is she there?” Sophie asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
“What about Michael?”
“His vehicle entered the property at seven-oh-eight.”
Evelyn set down the cup.
“And left?”
Ortiz paused.
“The vehicle left at seven-forty-one.”
“Without him?”
“We can’t tell from the exterior camera.”
Daniel stood.
Bell immediately ordered him back down.
Daniel ignored him.
“If his car left, he knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That Caroline moved it.”
Ortiz stepped closer.
“Moved what?”
Daniel stared at the floor.
Sophie whispered, “Floor.”
He looked at her, and whatever resistance remained in him seemed to collapse.
“A drive.”
Martin frowned.
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
Evelyn nearly threw the hot chocolate at him.
Daniel saw her expression.
“I know what’s on it.”
“Then perhaps lead with that.”
“Patient records.”
Martin’s humor disappeared.
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try another phrase.”
“Thousands.”
Nobody spoke.
The microwave hummed in the corner though nobody had turned it on.
Then it clicked off.
Ortiz pulled out her notebook.
“Whose patient records?”
“Vale Medical.”
“What is in them that Michael cares about?”
Daniel looked at Sophie again.
This time Sophie did not look away.
“Device failures.”
Martin slowly lowered himself into a chair.
Daniel continued.
“Caroline worked there years ago.”
Evelyn turned sharply.
“She was an accountant.”
“She was a compliance analyst before that.”
Evelyn had not known.
The fact was small beside everything else and somehow hurt more.
Four years of silence contained entire careers.
“She found reports that had been reclassified.”
“Reclassified how?” Ortiz asked.
“User error instead of device malfunction.”
“What devices?”
“Home monitoring systems.”
“Including respiratory devices?”
“Yes.”
Sophie looked at the inhaler cap on the table.
Daniel shook his head.
“Not that model.”
“But related technology.”
“Yes.”
“Why did Caroline have the records?”
“She copied them.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
Evelyn looked at the photograph.
The courthouse date.
Seven years.
“What happened seven years ago?”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Caroline tried to leave Michael.”
Sophie stared at him.
“They were married?”
“No.”
“But he’s my dad.”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Daniel blinked.
“No, they weren’t married.”
Sophie wrapped both hands around the paper cup.
“Did he want me?”
Daniel did not answer quickly enough.
Evelyn hated him for the delay, though an immediate lie might have been worse.
“He wanted control,” Daniel said.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
Sophie looked into her drink.
Evelyn placed one hand over hers.
The child did not pull away.
Ortiz said, “Why keep the drive for seven years?”
“Insurance.”
“Against Michael?”
“Yes.”
“Why not report it?”
“She tried.”
“To whom?”
“A lawyer first.”
“And?”
“The lawyer told her copied patient files could expose her too.”
Ortiz nodded slowly.
“And after that?”
“She got scared.”
“Yet she kept them.”
“She was always going to do something.”
Daniel’s voice held bitterness without mockery.
“Caroline is very good at being almost ready.”
Evelyn looked at him.
That sounded cruel because it sounded familiar.
Caroline at seventeen, standing beside a packed suitcase for three hours before unpacking it.
Caroline at twenty-three, accepting a job she hated because the better offer required moving.
Caroline at thirty, saying she would call her mother after one more week had passed and the argument felt less raw.
Almost ready could consume years.
The prepaid phone vibrated on the table.
Everyone froze.
Evelyn reached for it.
Ortiz stopped her.
“Photograph first.”
She documented the screen.
The message contained an address.
Below it were four words.
NOT THE STORAGE UNIT.
Daniel stood again.
“Where is that?”
Ortiz searched the address on her phone.
Her face hardened.
“An industrial building near the river.”
Daniel crossed the room before Bell could stop him.
He looked at the screen.
“That’s Vale’s old testing lab.”
“Operational?”
“Closed three years ago.”
“Who owns it?”
“Michael.”
The prepaid phone rang.
No name appeared.
Ortiz looked at Evelyn.
“This time we answer.”
She activated speakerphone.
“Caroline?”
For a moment there was only static.
Then a man’s voice said, “Evelyn Mercer.”
Sophie’s fingers locked around Evelyn’s hand.
Evelyn stared at the phone.
“Yes.”
“I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
She looked across the room at Daniel.
He had gone completely still.
May you like
“Michael.”
A quiet breath came through the speaker.
