Chương 7
My father appeared in the doorway with a fresh mug of coffee.
He held it toward me.
I stared at it.
“I have one.”
“That one’s cold.”
I looked down.
My mug sat on the floor beside the garage door.
I had forgotten putting it there.
He kept holding out the fresh one.
I accepted it.
“Thanks.”
He nodded.
Then he stood beside me.
For several moments, neither of us spoke.
Across the street, Mr. Denton had abandoned the curtain and was openly standing on his porch.
My father noticed him.
“Nosy bastard.”
I looked at Dad.
He looked at me.
Against all reason, I laughed again.
This one stayed a laugh.
He almost smiled.
Then the expression disappeared.
“I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
I looked at the coffee.
“No.”
“I was angry.”
“I know.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“No.”
His fingers tightened around the empty hand at his side.
“I didn’t know what to do with you.”
I raised my eyes.
He winced.
“That came out wrong.”
“It usually does with you.”
“I mean after David died.”
His gaze moved toward the driveway.
“You stopped answering calls.”
“I was busy.”
“You were hiding.”
“So were you.”
He looked at me.
“Behind what?”
“The newspaper, mostly.”
He let out a breath.
Fair enough.
Then he rubbed his jaw.
“You looked like your mother after her father died.”
I had never heard him say that before.
“She stopped eating,” he said.
“She wouldn’t talk to anybody.”
“You told me Grandpa died of a heart attack.”
“He did.”
“That doesn’t explain Mom.”
“No.”
He watched the steam rise from my coffee.
“He died after they had a fight.”
I waited.
My father rarely approached a story directly.
He circled it like a dog suspicious of a new piece of furniture.
“She told him not to drive home because he’d been drinking.”
His voice dropped.
“He told her she was dramatic.”
My mother’s favorite accusation.
I wondered if she had inherited it.
“He drove anyway?”
“No.”
Dad shook his head.
“He stayed.”
I frowned.
“He went upstairs to bed at your aunt’s house and died in his sleep.”
The story was somehow worse for being ordinary.
“Your mother spent years thinking the argument killed him.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“Does she?”
“Most days.”
He looked toward the kitchen.
“Some days, people know things and believe different things.”
I turned the cup in my hands.
My father cleared his throat.
“So when you stopped eating and stopped talking, she panicked.”
“She reorganized my kitchen.”
“She reorganizes when she’s terrified.”
“She threw away David’s hot sauce.”
“She hates that hot sauce.”
“That wasn’t hers to throw away.”
“No.”
He nodded.
“She shouldn’t have.”
I took another bite of the protein bar.
“So your solution was to bully me into acting normal.”
His mouth tightened.
“When you put it that way.”
“How else would you put it?”
“I was trying to make you mad.”
I stared at him.
He met my eyes.
“Angry Claire eats.”
The sentence was so ridiculous and so painfully accurate that I did not know what to say.
He went on.
“You get furious, then you make eggs.”
“I do not.”
“You made six eggs after Harper crashed your first car.”
“I was seventeen.”
“You ate four of them.”
“I was seventeen.”
He looked almost embarrassed.
“I thought if you got mad enough, you’d come back.”
The coffee warmed my hands.
“You called me selfish at my husband’s funeral.”
“After.”
“That distinction is not helping.”
“I know.”
We stood in silence.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
This apology was different from the one he had given over the envelope.
It cost him more.
I could hear that in the way he nearly swallowed the last word.
I did not forgive him.
Not then.
But I nodded.
That was what I had.
He accepted it.
The sound of tires on pavement drew Ross’s attention.
A dark sedan turned onto the street.
No lights.
No siren.
It stopped behind the military vehicles.
Two people stepped out wearing plain clothes.
One was a broad man in his forties with close-cropped hair.
The other was a woman perhaps ten years older than me carrying a hard-sided evidence case.
They showed credentials to Ross before entering the driveway.
Julian straightened.
Every trace of domestic irritation vanished from his face.
Fear replaced it.
The woman approached me first.
“Lieutenant Colonel Mercer.”
“Yes.”
“Special Agent Nina Bell.”
We shook hands.
“This is Special Agent Carter.”
Carter nodded.
Bell’s gaze moved toward the open trunk.
“We understand a controlled government device was removed from your residence and connected to an unauthorized computer.”
“That’s correct.”
“Do you know when it was removed?”
I looked at Julian.
“No.”
Bell followed my gaze.
Julian folded his arms.
“Sometime last night.”
Harper had returned to the doorway wearing a sweater over her robe.
She froze.
“Last night?”
Julian turned.
“Harper.”
“You told me this morning.”
“I found it last night.”
“You said you went looking this morning.”
“I went back this morning.”
“For what?”
“Can we not do this now?”
Bell looked at me.
“Ma’am, is there somewhere we can speak privately?”
I looked toward the house.
The irony almost made me laugh again.
“My bedroom, apparently.”
Harper lowered her eyes.
Bell did not react.
She had probably entered homes where families had said worse things.
I led her inside.
My father moved out of the way.
The broken mug was still scattered across the kitchen floor.
My mother had placed a towel over the largest spill but had not picked up the ceramic pieces.
Bell stepped around them.
Halfway up the stairs, I felt the weight of David’s envelope in my hand.
I stopped.
Bell waited below me.
“What is it?”
I looked at the handwriting.
“I found something unrelated.”
The words sounded wrong as soon as I said them.
Nothing involving David felt unrelated anymore.
Bell’s eyes moved to the envelope.
May you like
“Was that located near the compromised device?”
“No.”
