Chương 7
Diane’s voice cracked.
“For once, I wish I had.”
Hannah stepped closer.
“Who else?”
“I don’t know.”
Diane scrolled farther.
A message appeared beneath it that she had apparently treated as more of Tessa’s paranoia at the time.
Trent was released in June.
He found my sister last week.
Do not let Hannah be alone.
Nobody moved.
Noah looked at Hannah.
She had gone completely still.
I knew before she said his name that she understood exactly which Trent Tessa meant.
“Claire.”
“I’m here.”
“He knows where I am?”
“I don’t know.”
She grabbed my wrist.
Not my hand.
My wrist, hard enough that her nails pressed into my skin.
“Does he know where I am?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.”
This time the words did not sound evasive.
They sounded like a decision.
I turned to Diane.
“Send me the entire message thread.”
She nodded immediately.
“No screenshots.”
“What?”
“Export it if you can, or forward every message with dates visible.”
“I can do that.”
“Don’t delete anything.”
“I won’t.”
I took out my phone.
Hannah’s grip tightened when she saw it.
“Who are you calling?”
“Marisol.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“She has an emergency number.”
“Are you calling the police?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
Because I had a photograph of my house, a message from a woman with an active case, and a warning about a man whose current location I did not know.
Because calling law enforcement without understanding what had happened could terrify Hannah further and might not produce anything useful.
Because I was frightened enough to want sirens and adult enough to know fear was not a plan.
“I’m calling Marisol first because she needs to know about the contact and the photographs.”
Hannah’s face hardened.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“I broke the rules.”
“You hid contact.”
“That means yes.”
“No.”
I put my phone down for a moment.
“You are not in trouble.”
She searched my face.
“What about the review?”
“I don’t know how this affects it.”
Her grip loosened.
There was the phrase again, but now she nodded.
Maybe truth was easier to tolerate when it came without disguise.
Diane stepped toward her.
“Hannah, I am sorry.”
Hannah looked at her.
Diane’s voice shook.
“I thought your mother was giving me information nobody else would because everybody was afraid to criticize Claire.”
I stared at her.
She kept going.
“I thought I was being careful.”
“You weren’t,” Noah said.
Diane swallowed.
“No.”
It was the first thing she had admitted without qualification all afternoon.
“I wasn’t.”
Hannah looked at the phone in Diane’s hand.
“Why did you answer her?”
Diane rubbed her thumb along the edge of the case.
The question seemed to strip away every respectable explanation she had prepared.
Finally she said, “Because she made me feel like I was the only person willing to see something everyone else was ignoring.”
Grandma leaned back against the porch rail.
Diane looked at me.
“And because I already thought Claire was moving too fast.”
There it was.
Not noble.
Not monstrous.
Just enough resentment waiting for somebody to feed it.
“I thought you wanted everyone to act like Hannah was already adopted,” Diane said.
“You could have said that to me.”
“I did.”
“You made comments.”
“Because every time I said anything directly, you treated me like I was heartless.”
“You called her placement an experiment at Thanksgiving.”
“I said the family was being asked to adjust to an experiment.”
“That is worse.”
“I know that now.”
Hannah released my wrist.
“I want to go home.”
I turned to her.
“Okay.”
“Now.”
“Okay.”
Noah stood.
“What about the cake?”
She looked at him.
“You should eat your birthday cake.”
“I already did.”
“You had frosting off your thumb.”
“That counts.”
Hannah shook her head.
“Idiot.”
He smiled faintly.
Then she surprised both of us by hugging him.
It was quick and awkward.
Noah’s arms came up a second late.
When she stepped back, he looked as though somebody had handed him something fragile without instructions.
“Happy birthday,” she said.
“Thanks.”
Diane watched them.
Her face folded slightly.
She did not cry.
Maybe she had learned enough in the last hour to understand that her feelings did not need to become the center of the scene.
I called Marisol from Grandma’s driveway while Hannah went inside for her backpack.
The emergency line rang twice.
Then Marisol answered with the exhausted caution of someone whose weekends were frequently ruined by other people’s emergencies.
“Claire?”
“I need to tell you something about Tessa.”
There was a pause.
“What happened?”
“She contacted my aunt three weeks ago.”
Silence.
Then Marisol said, very carefully, “Three weeks?”
“She also approached Hannah at the school open house in April.”
The silence after that was longer.
“Did Hannah just disclose this?”
“Yes.”
“Is she safe with you now?”
“She’s at my grandmother’s house with me.”
“Any immediate threat there?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
I looked at the photograph of my house still open on Diane’s phone.
“There may be.”
My voice dropped.
“Tessa sent photos of my house, and she says Trent was released in June and has been trying to find Hannah.”
Marisol inhaled.
When she spoke again, the weekend fatigue was gone.
“Claire, listen to me carefully.”
I looked toward the house as Hannah appeared behind the screen door with her backpack on one shoulder.
“Do not take Hannah home.”
For a second I thought I had misheard her.
“What?”
“Do not take Hannah to your house.”
Marisol’s voice was flat now, efficient in the way people become when fear has to wait behind procedure.
“Why?”
“Because if those photographs are recent and we don’t know who took all of them, your address may be compromised.”
Hannah had come down the porch steps.
She stopped when she heard the word compromised.
May you like
I turned away slightly, though there was no hiding this from her anymore.
“Where do you want us to go?”
