Chương 2
"I saw a teenager."
My jaw tightened.
"Boy or girl?"
"Boy."
"How old?"
"Sixteen, maybe seventeen."
"Did you recognize him?"
She hesitated.
"No."
That hesitation stayed with me.
Not because I thought she was lying.
Because I knew the difference between not knowing and not wanting to know.
"Did he see you?" Ortiz asked.
Mrs. Callahan looked away.
"I think so."
The detective closed her notebook.
"Thank you."
After she left, I stood alone in the kitchen.
The refrigerator hummed.
The clock above the sink ticked too loudly.
On the counter sat Violet's ceramic mug from last Christmas.
She had painted it herself.
The handle was crooked because she said perfect things were boring.
I picked it up without thinking.
Then I put it back.
My hands were shaking.
I hated that.
Not because shaking meant fear.
Fear was useful.
Fear kept people alive.
I hated it because my daughter had spent years seeing me as someone who could fix things.
And now the one thing I needed to fix was lying in a hospital bed because I wasn't there.
My phone vibrated.
A message from my ex-wife, Claire.
I stared at her name for several seconds before answering.
She was not someone I avoided.
She was someone I had failed slowly enough that neither of us noticed until the damage was permanent.
She answered on the first ring.
"Daniel?"
Her voice changed immediately.
Parents know when another parent is about to deliver bad news.
"Where are you?"
"Home."
A pause.
"Why?"
I closed my eyes.
"Claire."
"No."
Her voice cracked.
"No, don't do that."
"Violet was attacked."
The silence afterward was worse than screaming.
"Is she alive?"
"Yes."
Another silence.
"How bad?"
I looked toward the hallway.
I couldn't say the words.
"Daniel."
"I don't know yet."
A breath shook through the phone.
"Who did it?"
I looked at the alarm panel again through the open doorway.
The green light still glowed.
"I don't know."
But I did know one thing.
Whoever had entered our home had not broken through a door.
They had walked through one.
And that meant they were close enough to know exactly when nobody would be watching.
And that meant they were close enough to know exactly when nobody would be watching.
I stayed at the hospital until the first doctor came through the double doors and said the words I had been afraid to hear.
"She's stable."
Stable was not the same as safe.
Doctors had their own language, and parents learned quickly that every word had a shadow behind it.
Stable meant she was alive.
Stable meant the next hour mattered.
Stable meant there were still battles happening inside a body too young to understand why it had been turned into a battlefield.
The doctor was a woman named Patel.
She had tired eyes and a calm voice that sounded practiced but not empty.
"Your daughter has multiple injuries," she said.
"Head trauma, facial injuries, bruising across her arms and torso."
My hands tightened at my sides.
"Was she conscious?"
"Briefly, according to the paramedics."
"Can she talk?"
"Not yet."
The answer landed harder than I expected.
Not yet meant maybe.
Maybe meant hope.
Hope was dangerous because it made room for disappointment.
"When can I see her?"
"After we finish stabilizing her."
I nodded.
I had spent fifteen years waiting for orders, waiting for extraction windows, waiting for the right moment to move.
Waiting had never felt this impossible.
Claire arrived twenty minutes later.
She came through the emergency entrance wearing jeans, a gray sweater, and the same silver necklace she had worn during our daughter's first birthday.
She stopped when she saw me.
For a second, neither of us moved.
Divorce teaches people how to stand in the same room while carrying years of unfinished conversations.
"You look terrible," she said quietly.
It was the most normal thing anyone had said to me all day.
I almost laughed.
Almost.
"So do you."
Her face tightened.
Then she walked over and hugged me.
We had not hugged in almost two years.
It lasted maybe three seconds.
It felt strange.
It felt familiar.
It felt like remembering a language you used to speak.
"Tell me what happened," she whispered.
I looked toward the waiting room.
"There was no forced entry."
She pulled back.
"What does that mean?"
"The alarm wasn't triggered."
"Daniel."
"Someone used the code."
Her expression changed.
"What code?"
I looked at her.
She looked back.
Neither of us spoke.
Then she said, "Violet changed it last month."
That stopped me.
"Why?"
Claire looked away.
"I don't know."
"Claire."
She rubbed her forehead.
"She said she wanted privacy."
"From who?"
"I thought from us."
The answer bothered me because it sounded like something a teenager would say.
Normal.
Harmless.
Until it wasn't.
"Did she tell you the new code?"
"No."
"Did she tell anyone?"
"I don't know."
There was a moment where anger tried to choose a target.
Claire saw it.
"Don't."
I looked at her.
"Don't what?"
"Don't start looking for someone to blame because you're scared."
The words hit because they were true.
I hated that.
"You think I'm doing that?"
"I think you are very good at finding enemies."
She swallowed.
"I also think you forget sometimes that not every problem is a mission."
The old version of me would have argued.
The man I was that night was too tired.
"I couldn't protect her."
Claire's expression softened.
"No."
Her voice lowered.
"You couldn't be everywhere."
"I was supposed to be here."
"Daniel."
"I was supposed to be here."
She looked at me for a long time.
Then she said something I didn't expect.
"She missed you."
I stared at the floor.
"She told me she understood."
"She did."
Claire wiped her eyes.
"That's the problem."
A nurse appeared near the hallway.
"Family of Violet Harper?"
We both stood.
The nurse looked between us.
"One person can go in for now."
Claire looked at me.
May you like
"Go."
I hesitated.
