Chương 3
Father.
A simple word.
A normal word.
For other people.
For her, it carried too many versions of the same man.
The charming one from old photographs.
The exhausted one who forgot birthdays.
The angry one who disappeared into his workshop for days.
The accused one people whispered about after the investigation.
The dead one whose grave she visited every year even though she was never sure she was visiting him or the person everyone else needed him to be.
"What about him?" she asked.
"His name was never supposed to be connected to the property."
"That doesn't answer me."
"No, it doesn't."
Daniel sounded frustrated with himself.
"I was trying to figure out why."
Mara stared at the envelope.
The paper inside had a date from two months after her father’s official death.
A date that should not have existed.
"Come over," she said.
"I can't."
"Why?"
Another pause.
This one was different.
This one carried fear.
"Because someone already knows we found it."
The sentence landed quietly.
No dramatic sound.
No sudden movement.
Just a man saying something that changed the shape of the day.
Mara walked to the window and looked down at the street.
People moved between parked cars and storefronts.
A woman carried groceries in one arm while holding a toddler's hand with the other.
A delivery driver leaned against his van while scrolling through his phone.
Nobody looked up.
Nobody knew.
Or maybe someone did.
"How do you know?" Mara asked.
"Because my office computer was accessed last night."
"Did you report it?"
"No."
"Daniel."
"I know."
"Why wouldn't you report someone breaking into your office?"
"Because they didn't steal anything."
"That doesn't mean anything."
"I know."
The repeated phrase irritated her because it sounded too much like surrender.
Daniel had always been careful.
That was what she admired about him when they first met.
He noticed details other people ignored.
He remembered small things.
He kept copies of documents.
He arrived early.
He apologized too much.
But lately, his caution had started looking like fear.
"Send me everything you found," she said.
"I already did."
Mara looked at her phone.
There was a new message waiting.
Three attachments.
One photograph.
Two scanned documents.
She opened the photograph first.
It showed a room she recognized immediately.
Her father's workshop.
The image was old and slightly blurred.
The angle was strange, like whoever took it had been standing outside the doorway.
On the table sat the same wooden box she had found last week.
The same box that had contained the envelope.
The same box she thought had been untouched for years.
Except in the photograph, the box was open.
And someone was standing beside it.
Mara zoomed in.
The face was unclear.
But the jacket was not.
She knew that jacket.
She had seen it yesterday.
At the storage facility.
A man waiting near the entrance.
A man who claimed he was there to pick up a package.
She had ignored him because she was tired and because she had spent six years believing her father's past was nothing more than a painful story with a final page.
She was starting to understand there was no final page.
There were only pages nobody had read yet.
"Mara?" Daniel said.
She didn't respond.
"Mara, what did you see?"
She placed the phone against her ear.
"I think someone has been inside my father's workshop recently."
"That place was locked."
"I know."
"Who had access?"
She looked toward the hallway where her keys sat on the table.
Then she looked back at the envelope.
A small detail surfaced.
Something she had ignored because it seemed too ordinary.
The lock on the workshop door had been replaced.
Not broken.
Not damaged.
Replaced.
"I don't know," she whispered.
Daniel went quiet.
Then he said, "You need to leave your apartment."
Mara almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was the exact kind of thing people said in movies right before everything became impossible.
"I'm not running."
"This isn't about running."
"Then what is it about?"
"It's about understanding that someone has been ahead of us."
She hated that he was right.
She hated even more that part of her felt relieved someone else finally said it.
She grabbed the envelope and slipped the documents into her bag.
"What are you doing?"
"Going to the workshop."
"No."
The firmness in his voice stopped her for half a second.
Daniel rarely sounded like that.
"Mara, listen to me."
"I'm listening."
"If your father hid something, he had a reason."
"You don't know that."
"No."
A pause.
"But I know him."
The words bothered her.
Not because they were false.
Because they were true.
Daniel had known her father before she had learned to keep distance from him.
He had worked with him.
Trusted him.
Defended him.
Then disappeared from her life after the investigation started.
Mara had never forgiven him for that.
Maybe because forgiveness required admitting she still cared.
"Where are you?" she asked.
"At my office."
"Stay there."
"Why?"
"Because if someone is watching us, they need to think they only have one person to follow."
Daniel didn't answer.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then he said, "You sound like your father."
Mara hated the immediate reaction her body had.
The tightening in her throat.
The sudden memory of a hand fixing a broken cabinet hinge.
A voice telling her to hold the flashlight steady.
A man who could repair almost anything except the damage he caused to people.
"Don't say that."
"I'm sorry."
"No."
She looked at the old photograph again.
"Don't apologize like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you already know you're going to lose the argument."
A small breath came through the phone.
Almost a laugh.
Almost.
"No."
"Mara."
"You said someone might be watching."
"They might be."
"Then don't make it easier."
May you like
She ended the call before he could answer.
For several seconds, she stood still with the phone in her hand.
