Chương 3
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
He hated that part of him believed her.
That was the problem with loving someone.
You could be angry and still recognize the sound of their voice when they were trying not to fall apart.
“Come over,” he said.
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
“You’re afraid.”
“I’m being careful.”
“You’ve been careful for three years.”
She did not answer.
The silence was longer this time.
When she finally spoke, her voice had changed.
“I can’t come there.”
“Why?”
“Because if someone is watching you, they’ll know I went there.”
Daniel looked around the apartment.
The old couch.
The stack of unopened bills.
The coffee mug he had forgotten beside the sink.
Everything suddenly looked like a place that belonged to a stranger.
“Who is watching me?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“I know.”
The honesty surprised him.
Claire had always been better at fighting than admitting weakness.
“Meet me somewhere public,” she said.
“Where?”
“Not somewhere we usually go.”
Daniel almost laughed.
Almost.
Because that was exactly the kind of thing people said in movies before something terrible happened.
But Claire was not a movie character.
She was his sister.
She was the person who had slept on his bedroom floor when he was eleven because he was afraid of storms.
She was the person who worked two jobs after their father left because their mother could not keep up with the bills.
She was also the person who stopped answering his calls after one phone conversation three years ago.
The same conversation where she told him to stop trying to save her.
An hour later, Daniel sat inside a crowded diner twenty minutes from his apartment.
He chose a booth near the front window.
Claire arrived eleven minutes late.
She looked different.
Not dramatically.
Nothing that another person would notice.
Her hair was shorter.
Her jacket was older than the one she had worn the last time he saw her.
She carried herself like someone who had learned to take up less space.
She sat across from him.
“You shouldn’t have called me,” she said.
“That’s your opening line?”
“It’s the truth.”
“No, it’s a way to avoid the conversation.”
A waitress placed two glasses of water on the table.
Claire thanked her.
Daniel noticed her hands.
Her fingers were tight around the glass.
“You still do that,” he said.
“What?”
“You hold cups like they’re going to leave.”
She looked down.
For a second, she almost smiled.
Then it disappeared.
“I missed that,” she said.
“What?”
“You noticing things.”
Daniel looked away.
He wanted to accept the compliment.
He wanted to tell her he missed her too.
Instead he said, “Tell me what happened.”
Claire looked through the window.
A bus stopped across the street.
People stepped off without looking at each other.
“I worked for a company called Northline Analytics,” she said.
“I remember.”
“No, you remember the name.”
Daniel frowned.
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is you thought I was doing paperwork.”
“What were you doing?”
Claire folded the corner of a napkin.
A small nervous habit she had since childhood.
“I was auditing internal financial records.”
“And?”
“And I found something.”
“What?”
She looked at him.
Not at the photograph.
Not at the envelope.
At him.
“I found out someone had been moving money through fake accounts.”
Daniel waited.
“That happens,” he said.
“Not like this.”
Her voice became quieter.
“Because the money wasn’t the only thing being changed.”
“What else?”
“Records.”
The noise of the diner seemed to fade.
“What records?”
Claire looked down.
“Employee records.”
Daniel felt a cold pressure in his chest.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“That’s the part you never understood about people like that.”
“People like who?”
“The people who have enough power that everyone assumes they must have a reason.”
She took a breath.
“They don’t always have a reason that makes sense.”
Daniel watched her.
“You reported it.”
Claire did not answer.
That was enough.
“You reported it.”
“I tried.”
“And?”
“And after that, everything became about proving I was the problem.”
She looked toward the window again.
“Suddenly I was difficult.”
She smiled slightly.
“Difficult is a useful word.”
“What happened after?”
“I lost my job.”
Daniel stared.
“That’s it?”
“No.”
The way she said it made him stop.
“What else?”
Claire reached into her bag.
She pulled out a small notebook.
It looked ordinary.
Cheap cover.
Bent corners.
Something someone might leave beside a phone charger and forget.
She placed it on the table.
“I kept copies.”
Daniel did not touch it.
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
The waitress returned and asked if they were ready to order.
Neither of them answered.
The waitress looked between them.
“Take your time,” she said.
After she left, Claire whispered, “Someone wants those copies.”
Daniel looked at the notebook.
“Then why give them to me?”
“Because I’m not sure I’m the safest person to have them anymore.”
The answer hurt more than he expected.
Not because it involved danger.
Because it meant his sister had been carrying this alone long enough that trusting him had become a last option instead of the first.
“Claire.”
She looked up.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised both of them.
Daniel swallowed.
“I’m angry.”
“I know.”
“I’m not angry because you were scared.”
“I know.”
“I’m angry because you decided I couldn’t handle the truth.”
Claire looked down.
“I decided I couldn’t handle losing you.”
Daniel had no answer for that.
For the first time in years, there was nothing useful to say.
The diner continued around them.
A child dropped a fork.
Someone laughed too loudly near the counter.
A man in a business suit checked his phone every thirty seconds.
Life continued without caring that two people were finally saying things they should have said years earlier.
Daniel reached toward the notebook.
Before his fingers touched it, Claire grabbed his wrist.
“Wait.”
He looked at her.
May you like
“What?”
She released him slowly.
