Chương 4
Mara looked up.
Dana folded her arms. “You have authority in your city. You have expertise. You have a badge in a box twenty feet away. None of that makes you the right person to take her statement.”
“I’m not trying to take a statement.”
“You already have questions lined up.”
Mara did.
She looked toward the locked treatment doors.
Dana’s expression softened only a little. “Go in as her sister. If you can’t do that, don’t go in yet.”
Chloe lay propped against white pillows, her hair washed away from the dried blood near her temple. Purple swelling closed part of her left eye. A soft brace supported her neck. Her hands rested above the blanket because both wrists had been wrapped.
Mara stopped inside the doorway.
Chloe gave her a crooked smile.
“You look terrible,” Chloe whispered.
Mara laughed once. It came out like a cough.
“You should see the other guy.”
“That’s my line.”
“I got here first.”
Mara moved closer and touched two fingers to the back of Chloe’s hand, avoiding the tape and bruises.
For a minute neither of them spoke. A blood-pressure cuff inflated around Chloe’s arm. The machine beeped twice, dissatisfied with something, and began again.
“Mom says I fell,” Chloe said.
“I heard.”
“She gets very certain when she’s lying.”
Mara pulled the visitor chair nearer. One wheel squeaked.
“Tell the nurse what happened.”
Chloe looked toward the ceiling.
“Chloe.”
“I’m tired.”
“He could have killed you.”
“I know.”
“Then tell them.”
Chloe turned her face away.
Mara felt the familiar pressure in her chest, the urge to push until a witness gave her the sentence that would make action possible.
“What did you find?” she asked.
Chloe’s uncovered eye moved back to her. “What?”
“Under the table. A locket.”
Fear changed her face.
Mara leaned forward. “Where did you get it?”
“Mara.”
“Did Jonah have it?”
“I can’t.”
“Did Mom know?”
“Stop.”
“Chloe, that locket belonged to a woman who disappeared six years ago.”
The monitor quickened.
Dana appeared in the doorway. “Captain.”
“She needs to understand—”
“She needs to rest.”
“She knows something.”
“She knows you are asking questions while she has a concussion.”
Chloe shut her eye.
Mara stood, angry at Dana because anger was easier than shame.
In the hallway, Dana closed the door between them.
“You did exactly what I asked you not to do.”
“I found evidence from a homicide investigation in the room where my sister was nearly beaten unconscious.”
“Then tell the investigators.”
“She is the investigator’s witness.”
“She is also a human being whose mother and stepfather have spent years teaching her that her safety depends on keeping them comfortable.”
Mara looked through the narrow window in the door.
Dana lowered her voice. “You cannot order her into courage.”
“I’m trying to keep her alive.”
“Then start by making sure she doesn’t have to protect herself from you.”
Mara spent the rest of the hour in the cafeteria, where a worker with a hairnet pushed a mop around empty tables. She bought tea she did not want. The lid would not fit the paper cup, and she kept trying anyway until hot water spilled across her hand.
Nate Calder found her blotting the table with napkins.
He wore jeans, a brown canvas coat, and the expression of a man who had driven through the same storm while regretting every mile.
His hair had gone mostly gray. A scar Mara did not recognize crossed his chin.
“You look like hell,” he said.
“That’s apparently the theme tonight.”
He sat opposite her but did not take off his coat.
“Cal sent me the photograph.”
“So you agree?”
“It’s Leah’s locket.”
Mara waited for relief and felt none.
Nate rubbed both hands over his face. “Tessa is awake. I called her.”
“You told her?”
“I told her we found an item that may belong to Leah. I did not tell her where until the state police speak with her.”
“Good.”
“You don’t get to approve.”
Mara stared at the tea.
Nate had joined the state police cold-case unit two years after leaving Hawthorne County. She had heard through other detectives that he was good at it. She had also heard he was divorced, then heard he was remarried, then decided she had no right to know which rumor was true.
He leaned back. “Why did you call me before you found the locket?”
“Chloe said Jonah hurt her.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“He was connected to Leah.”
“He was interviewed.”
“He lied.”
“So did half the people in that file.”
“My mother gave him an alibi.”
“Your mother gave him a perfect alibi, which is different.”
Mara looked toward the cafeteria entrance. No one was near enough to hear.
“Leah called me,” she said.
Nate’s face became still.
“A week before she disappeared,” Mara continued. “She left a voicemail on my personal phone.”
“You told me she never contacted you.”
“I lied.”
He did not react immediately. That was worse than anger.
“What did she say?”
“She said she needed to talk about my family. She said, ‘I need to ask you what happens when the person hurting somebody is family.’”
Nate stared at her.
“I called her back,” Mara said. “She didn’t answer. Then Mom told me Leah had been stealing from the house and making trouble with Jonah. She said Chloe didn’t want her there anymore.”
“And you deleted the message.”
Mara nodded.
“Before Leah disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“But you remembered it afterward.”
“Yes.”
“You were assigned to the investigation.”
“Not at first.”
“You joined on day two.”
“I should have disclosed it.”
“You should have put it in evidence.”
“I know.”
Nate pushed his chair back. Its metal legs scraped the floor.
“Six years,” he said.
“I know.”
“You let me chase phone records and boyfriends and bus stations while you knew she had called about your family.”
“I didn’t know she meant Jonah.”
May you like
“Who else did you think she meant?”
Mara could not answer.
