Chương 3
Human memory was cruel that way.
It did not erase a person when they betrayed you.
It made more copies.
“How long?” Nathan asked.
Claire’s voice became almost inaudible.
“About six months.”
Nathan nodded.
Ryan shifted his weight.
Bruno looked at him.
Ryan stopped moving.
Nathan stared at the bracelet hanging from his own fingers.
“You came to the house because?”
Ryan answered before Claire could.
“I wanted to talk to her.”
Nathan looked at him.
“About what?”
“Ending things properly.”
Claire’s mouth tightened.
“That’s not why.”
Ryan glanced at her.
She kept going.
“He wouldn’t stop calling.”
“I called twice.”
“You came to my house.”
“You told me we couldn’t keep doing it by phone.”
“I told you we couldn’t keep doing anything.”
Nathan watched them.
A small part of him wanted to laugh, because apparently the world had continued to contain petty arguments while Sophie was dead.
“Where was she?” he asked.
Neither answered.
Nathan stood.
“Where was my daughter while the two of you were deciding how to end your affair?”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Upstairs.”
“At first,” Ryan said.
Nathan turned to him.
“At first?”
Ryan did not answer.
The chapel doors opened.
Detective Vasquez entered with another officer carrying a small evidence kit.
Nathan had met Vasquez twice. She was in her early forties, with dark hair pulled back and the permanently tired eyes of someone who had learned not to promise grieving families more than facts could support.
She took in the room quickly: coffin, dog, Ryan, Claire, Nathan.
“Mr. Cole.”
Nathan held out the bracelet.
She stopped him.
“Keep it where it is for a second.”
She put on gloves, photographed it from several angles, photographed Bruno’s collar, then asked Nathan to describe exactly how he had found it.
He did.
Ryan watched.
Claire sat again.
Vasquez placed the bracelet in a paper evidence envelope.
When she sealed it, Nathan felt unexpectedly sick.
Sophie had worn that bracelet every day.
Now it belonged to a chain of custody.
“Who is Mr. Mercer?” Vasquez asked.
Ryan answered.
“Family friend.”
Nathan looked at him.
Ryan corrected himself.
“I work with Nathan.”
Vasquez turned toward Claire.
“And you?”
Claire stared at the coffin.
“I lied to you.”
Vasquez’s face did not change.
“About what?”
“Ryan was at the house that night.”
The second officer looked up.
Ryan rubbed his thumb against his index finger.
Vasquez said, “Mr. Mercer, I’m going to ask you not to discuss this further until I’ve had an opportunity to speak with each of you separately.”
“Am I being detained?”
“No.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
Nathan took one step forward.
Vasquez moved slightly between them.
Not dramatically. Just enough.
Ryan looked at Nathan.
“For what it’s worth,” he said quietly, “I didn’t kill Sophie.”
Nathan’s hands closed.
Vasquez spoke without looking at him.
“Mr. Cole.”
Nathan stopped.
Ryan turned.
Bruno stood.
The growl came again, low and contained.
Ryan’s shoulders tightened.
Then he walked through the wooden doors.
Nathan watched him go.
Claire whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Nathan did not look at her.
He stared at the space where Ryan had been standing.
“Which part?”
Claire made no answer.
That afternoon Nathan went home alone.
Claire asked if she could ride with him.
He told her no.
He did not say it angrily. Anger would have required a kind of intimacy he no longer had available.
The house was a forty-minute drive from the chapel, a stone Colonial on three acres outside Ellicott City. Nathan had bought it when Sophie was four because Claire wanted a yard and Nathan wanted to stop pretending a downtown townhouse was practical with a Bullmastiff.
Bruno sat in the back seat.
At every red light Nathan checked the mirror.
The dog watched the window.
Traffic moved.
People bought gas, merged badly, changed lanes without signaling. A man in a landscaper’s truck ate something from a foil wrapper. Two teenage girls laughed in the back of an SUV beside him.
Nathan hated them for about three seconds.
Then the light changed.
At home he left his suit jacket on the kitchen chair.
Sophie’s cereal bowl was still in the drying rack.
Claire had washed it the morning after the accident and then cried because she had washed it.
Nathan stood looking at the bowl.
Bruno went to the mudroom and lay beside the back door.
That was where Sophie had fallen.
The door to the basement stairs was beside the mudroom hallway, narrower than Nathan remembered. He had replaced the latch twice because it stuck in humid weather. Three weeks before Sophie died, he had told himself he would fix the warped frame properly on Saturday.
There had always been another Saturday.
The official account was simple.
Claire had been upstairs with a migraine.
Sophie had taken Bruno downstairs because he was scratching at the mudroom door.
She had slipped near the basement stairwell, fallen backward down twelve wooden steps, and struck the concrete landing.
Claire found her after hearing Bruno barking.
The medical examiner had found no sign of assault.
No defensive injuries.
No drugs.
No reason to call it anything except an accidental fall.
Nathan had accepted that because the alternative was madness.
Now he walked to the basement door.
There was a dent in the drywall at shoulder height.
He had seen it before.
He touched it.
His fingers came away dusty.
Behind him, Bruno whined.
Nathan turned.
The dog stood in the kitchen doorway.
“What happened?”
Bruno lowered his head.
Nathan hated himself immediately.
He went back to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and stared at shelves without seeing them.
His phone rang.
Pete.
Nathan let it ring.
Then again.
He answered on the third call.
“You alive?” Pete asked.
Nathan leaned against the counter.
“Technically.”
“I can come over.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Pete waited.
Nathan heard traffic behind him. Pete was probably sitting in his truck outside the funeral chapel, despite being told to go home.
“Ryan called the office,” Pete said.
May you like
Nathan straightened.
“What?”
