Chương 6
Daniel stared at her.
“My name?”
“Yes.”
“I’m a payroll manager at a hospital.”
“I know.”
“Then you know I don’t exactly spend my evenings moving money around with missing people.”
Ruiz did not react.
That bothered him.
Most people reacted to Daniel. They either trusted him quickly or underestimated him. He had spent fifteen years being the reliable person in every room. The man who remembered birthdays. The man who brought extra batteries. The man who stayed late because someone had to.
People like Daniel were rarely accused of anything.
They were usually asked for help cleaning up after other people.
“I need you to come with me,” Ruiz said.
“Am I under arrest?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because someone used your identity to access a storage unit yesterday, and inside that unit was evidence connected to Thomas Vale.”
Daniel looked toward the window.
Outside, a delivery driver argued with someone on the sidewalk about a parking spot. A woman in a blue coat walked past carrying flowers. A dog pulled against its leash because it wanted to smell a patch of grass that probably smelled exactly like every other patch of grass in the city.
The world had continued.
That felt insulting.
“Can I change my shirt?” Daniel asked.
Ruiz blinked.
“Your shirt?”
“I’m going to be answering questions, apparently. I’d rather not do it wearing something with a coffee stain.”
For the first time, her expression softened.
“Five minutes.”
Daniel went into his bedroom and closed the door.
He stood in front of the closet longer than necessary.
His clothes were arranged by color because his mother had once told him that small routines kept people from falling apart. He had laughed when she said it. He had been twenty-six and convinced adults were pretending to understand life.
Then his father died.
After that, Daniel started organizing things.
Shoes.
Bills.
Receipts.
Photographs.
Anything he could control.
He changed his shirt and noticed something strange.
A jacket hanging at the back of the closet had a torn inside pocket.
He owned the jacket for years.
He knew the tear.
What he did not know was the small black thread tied around the zipper.
Daniel touched it.
A memory almost surfaced.
Almost.
A parking lot.
Rain.
Someone saying his name.
Then nothing.
He pulled his hand away.
When he returned to the living room, Ruiz was looking at a framed photograph on the bookshelf.
Daniel’s family.
His parents.
His sister Emily.
Himself at seventeen, smiling with the uncomfortable confidence of someone who had not yet learned how many things could go wrong.
“You and your sister still close?” Ruiz asked.
“Most of the time.”
“Most?”
Daniel picked up his keys.
“She thinks I avoid difficult conversations.”
“Do you?”
He looked at her.
“That’s a difficult question.”
Ruiz almost smiled.
Almost.
The drive downtown was quiet.
Daniel sat in the passenger seat watching buildings pass by.
He noticed things he normally ignored.
A man sleeping on a bench with a newspaper covering his face.
A restaurant employee dragging chairs inside before opening.
A child pressing both hands against a car window to watch a fire truck.
The city was full of people carrying private disasters.
That thought had never comforted him before.
Today it did.
The police station smelled like old coffee and printer paper.
Daniel sat in an interview room across from Ruiz and Detective Aaron Bell.
Bell was younger than Daniel expected.
He had a tired face and a wedding ring he kept twisting whenever he read documents.
“We’re not saying you committed a crime,” Bell said.
Daniel looked at the folder between them.
“Then what are you saying?”
“That someone wants us to believe you did.”
“That’s better?”
Bell leaned back.
“Depends on who wants it.”
Ruiz opened the folder.
Inside were bank records.
Emails.
A copy of a contract.
Daniel recognized his signature.
That was the part that made his stomach tighten.
Not the accusations.
Not the missing man.
The signature.
Because it looked like his.
But Daniel had never seen the document before.
“I didn’t sign this.”
Bell studied him.
“You understand why that’s hard for us.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I look like someone who did.”
The room became quiet.
Bell stopped twisting his ring.
“That answer surprises me.”
“It shouldn’t.”
“Most people say they’re being framed.”
Daniel looked down at the papers.
“I don’t know if I’m being framed.”
The honesty seemed to make both detectives uncomfortable.
“I know something happened,” he continued. “I just don’t know what.”
Ruiz tapped the photograph.
“Thomas Vale contacted you before he disappeared.”
“No.”
“He called your phone.”
Daniel shook his head.
“I would remember.”
Bell opened another page.
“The call lasted forty-seven minutes.”
Daniel looked at the timestamp.
November fourteenth.
9:12 p.m.
His breathing changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Ruiz noticed.
“What?”
Daniel stared at the date.
“I was asleep.”
“Are you sure?”
He almost answered immediately.
Then he stopped.
Because suddenly he remembered waking up on the couch that night.
The television was off.
His phone was on the floor.
And there was a glass of water on the table.
Daniel never drank water before bed.
Never.
It was a small thing.
A meaningless thing.
Except now it was the first crack in a wall he had spent years building.
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
Bell closed the folder.
“That is the first useful answer you’ve given us.”
Daniel looked at him.
“I’m glad my confusion is finally helping.”
Nobody laughed.
But Ruiz looked away quickly, as if she almost had.
A few minutes later, Daniel was allowed to leave.
No charges.
No answers.
Just a temporary freedom that felt less like relief and more like a delay.
Outside the station, Emily was waiting beside her car.
She crossed her arms when she saw him.
“You didn’t call me.”
Daniel stopped.
“Who told you?”
“The police called.”
He looked away.
May you like
Of course they did.
His sister had always been the person who found out things before he was ready to say them.
