Chương 8
“I know.”
“Stop.”
He looked away.
Dr. Harris checked his pupils again.
“Daniel, focus on me.”
Daniel complied reluctantly.
Gabriel stood.
“Did you see Rebecca with anyone?”
“Not until later.”
“What happened later?”
“I was checking the generators after five.”
“Why?”
“We had a voltage warning.”
“Real warning?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
“What did you see?”
Daniel’s breathing changed.
“A man came through the maintenance corridor.”
“Description?”
“Tall.”
“How tall?”
“Six feet, maybe more.”
“Age?”
“Forties.”
“Hair?”
“Dark.”
“Face?”
Daniel shook his head.
“He wore a cap.”
“What kind?”
“Catering logo.”
“The same company?”
“Yes.”
Dominic’s voice was quiet.
“And Rebecca?”
“She was behind him.”
“Did they see you?”
“Yes.”
“What did they do?”
“She started crying.”
That surprised all of us.
“What did she say?”
Daniel’s eyes moved toward me.
“She told me to call Claire.”
My chest tightened.
“Why?”
“She said Claire needed to get Lily and leave.”
“Before the cake?”
“I think so.”
“What time?”
“Five fifteen, maybe.”
The cake had not been served until after six.
Dominic looked at Gabriel.
“Then Rebecca knew what was planned.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Or learned enough of it by then.”
Daniel swallowed.
“The man grabbed her arm.”
“Violently?”
“Yes.”
“What did she do?”
“She tried to pull away.”
“And you?”
Daniel’s mouth tightened.
“I told him to let her go.”
Dominic’s expression changed by a fraction.
“What happened?”
“He asked who I was.”
“I told him he needed to leave.”
“And?”
Daniel touched the blood behind his ear and winced.
“He smiled.”
I could picture it too easily.
The man had probably already decided what came next.
“He hit you?”
“Not at first.”
Daniel’s eyes closed again.
“He told Rebecca she had one job.”
“What job?”
“Get Claire upstairs.”
The room seemed to tilt around me.
The strange text.
The false message about towels.
The woman dressed like me in the freezer reflection.
Gabriel spoke first.
“Why did they need Claire upstairs?”
Daniel shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Dominic looked at me.
But I did.
Not completely.
Enough.
“They weren’t only clearing me away from the kitchen.”
“What?”
“The woman dressed like me.”
I looked at the gray concrete floor.
“If Rebecca was wearing my uniform, someone wanted people to think I was somewhere I wasn’t.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“A witness.”
“Or a camera.”
Dominic said nothing.
I continued.
“The corridor camera goes down.”
“The cold-room reflection catches someone who looks like me beside the poisoned cake.”
“Your phone gets a message that moves you upstairs.”
“And Lily sees Rebecca.”
I swallowed.
“She wasn’t supposed to.”
Gabriel paced two steps away.
“Then the evidence points toward Claire.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Not enough.”
“Enough to start a story.”
That was the phrase that frightened me.
A story.
Because stories did not need to be true to become useful.
Dominic’s enemies would not need a conviction.
They would need a photograph, a security still, a dead or hospitalized child, and a housekeeper whose sister had mysteriously appeared on the property.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Every person in the basement looked at me.
I pulled it out.
Unknown number.
One new message.
There was no text.
Only a photograph.
Rebecca stood in what looked like the back seat of my stolen Honda, though I could see only part of her.
Her wrists were bound with black plastic ties.
Blood ran from her nose to her upper lip.
Someone had taken the photograph close enough that terror filled her entire face.
Below it came a second message.
Bring Dominic’s phone to your cottage.
Come alone.
No police.
No security.
Then a third.
Your sister tried to save his boy once.
She will not get another chance.
Dominic reached for my phone.
I pulled it away.
“Claire.”
“No.”
“Give it to me.”
“They want your phone.”
“I can read.”
“They want me alone.”
“You’re not going.”
I looked at Rebecca’s photograph again.
For four years I had trained myself not to answer every disaster she created.
I had stopped paying bills that were not mine.
Stopped lying to landlords.
Stopped driving across state lines because she had missed another court date or lost another job or trusted another man who promised he was different.
I had learned that loving Rebecca did not mean following her into every fire.
But the woman in that photograph looked nothing like the sister who had screamed at me over five thousand dollars.
She looked like the twenty-four-year-old in the hospital who had squeezed my wrist and begged me not to disappear.
Dominic touched my arm.
“Look at me.”
I did.
“If you go alone, you give them exactly what they want.”
“And if I don’t?”
“We find another way.”
“They are holding her.”
“I know.”
“You don’t care about her.”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
It should have made me angry.
Instead it made me trust him a little more.
He did not pretend.
“But I care about you and Lily.”
His voice lowered.
“And I care very much about finding the man who almost killed Ethan.”
Gabriel read the messages over my shoulder.
“Cottage is already clear.”
“Then why send her there?”
Dominic asked.
“Because they know we checked it.”
Gabriel looked toward the stairwell.
“Or because they want us to think we did.”
I stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
“One of the men I sent stopped responding three minutes ago.”
Dominic’s face went cold.
“The other?”
“Still answering.”
“Who?”
“Martin.”
Dominic turned toward the basement door.
“Call him.”
Gabriel dialed.
He put the phone on speaker.
It rang once.
Twice.
Then a man answered.
“Russo.”
Gabriel’s eyes stayed on Dominic.
“Status.”
“Cottage clear.”
“Where’s Perez?”
“Checking the rear tree line.”
“When did he leave?”
A pause.
“Two minutes ago.”
Gabriel said nothing.
Neither did Dominic.
I could see the problem even before Gabriel asked the next question.
“What color is Claire’s kitchen?”
Another pause.
Then Martin laughed softly.
Not nervously.
May you like
Not like a man who had forgotten.
Like a man who had been waiting for them to notice.
