Chương 5
People walked through the lobby carrying coffee and backpacks.
A man argued softly with an insurance company representative.
A little girl laughed near the elevator.
Life kept happening around us.
I hated that.
Then I hated myself for hating it.
Because those people deserved their ordinary morning.
My daughter deserved hers too.
My phone rang.
It was an unknown number.
I answered immediately.
"Hello?"
Silence.
Not an accidental silence.
A listening silence.
"Who is this?"
The call ended.
I stared at the screen.
Ruiz noticed.
"Unknown?"
I nodded.
"Call history?"
"Just came in."
She held out her hand.
I gave her the phone.
She looked at the number.
"We'll request records."
"Request?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Depends."
I almost laughed.
Depends was becoming the official answer to everything.
She noticed my expression.
"I know what you're thinking."
"What?"
"That everyone is too slow."
I said nothing.
"Sometimes we are."
That honesty surprised me.
"But sometimes moving fast gets people hurt."
I looked at her.
"Someone already got hurt."
She nodded.
"I know."
The conversation ended there.
Not because we agreed.
Because we both understood the same thing.
The clock was moving.
Later that afternoon, I returned home alone.
The police had finished the initial search.
The tape remained.
The house remained.
Everything remained.
Except Violet.
I walked into her room for the first time since the attack.
It looked exactly like a sixteen-year-old girl's room should look.
Clothes on a chair.
Books stacked unevenly.
A half-finished sketch on her desk.
A cup with old pencils beside her laptop.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing that explained how someone could almost destroy her.
I opened her desk drawer.
Not because I had permission.
Because I was her father.
And because I needed to know what she had been carrying alone.
Inside was a notebook.
Black cover.
No name.
No decorations.
Just pages filled with handwriting.
I almost closed it.
Privacy mattered.
Even now.
Especially now.
Then I saw the first line on the open page.
Ethan knows Dad is gone.
I stopped breathing.
Below it, Violet had written another sentence.
And this time, the handwriting was different.
The letters were pressed so hard they nearly cut through the paper.
I think he knows something about what happened to Mom.
I read the sentence again and again until the meaning stopped being words and became something heavier.
I think he knows something about what happened to Mom.
For several seconds, I did nothing.
The room stayed exactly the same.
The fan above Violet's bed turned slowly.
A pair of sneakers sat beside her closet.
A photograph of the two of us at a beach three summers earlier leaned against a stack of books.
Everything looked normal.
That was the cruelest part.
My daughter's life had been carrying secrets right beside mine, and I had been close enough to touch them without ever seeing them.
I picked up the notebook carefully.
Not like evidence.
Like something fragile.
The first pages were ordinary.
Homework reminders.
Song lyrics.
Lists of things she wanted to do before graduation.
A complaint about a teacher who assigned too much reading.
A note about needing new headphones because the left side kept cutting out.
Then the entries changed.
The first mention of Ethan was written two months earlier.
Ethan Cole says he knows why Mom died.
I stared at the line until my eyes hurt.
My wife, Sarah, had been gone for six years.
A car accident.
That was the story everyone knew.
That was the story I had accepted because accepting anything else would have meant admitting there were questions I never asked.
The official report said she lost control on a rainy night outside town.
A single vehicle accident.
No other driver involved.
No criminal investigation.
No reason to doubt it.
Except now my daughter had doubted it.
I turned the page.
Violet's handwriting became messier.
She was not writing like someone documenting facts.
She was writing like someone trying to convince herself she was not imagining things.
Ethan found old articles.
He thinks someone lied about the accident.
I don't know if I believe him.
I don't know if I believe anyone.
The next entry was only one sentence.
Dad would tell me to stay away.
I closed my eyes.
Because she was right.
I would have told her to stay away.
I would have told her that sixteen-year-olds did not investigate things adults could not solve.
I would have told her that curiosity could get people hurt.
And maybe she knew that.
Maybe she also knew I would try to protect her by taking control.
Maybe that was why she never told me.
The sound of the front door opening pulled me from the room.
I immediately closed the notebook.
My hand moved toward the instinctive position of someone expecting danger before I even knew who was there.
Then I heard the voice.
"Mr. Harper?"
It was Mercer.
I stepped into the hallway.
"You should knock."
"I did."
"I didn't hear it."
He looked at me for a moment.
"That's probably the point."
I almost smiled.
Almost.
"What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to check something."
"About?"
He noticed the notebook in my hand.
His expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
"You found something."
I did not answer.
He looked past me toward Violet's room.
"Mr. Harper."
I walked into the kitchen.
He followed but stopped near the doorway.
"How much do you know about your daughter's activities?"
The question annoyed me because I knew what it meant.
"I know my daughter."
"That wasn't my question."
I looked at him.
He did not look away.
"She was sixteen."
"I know."
"Then you know parents sometimes know less than they think."
The words felt like an insult.
Maybe because they were close to the truth.
"What did you find?"
He looked toward the notebook.
"That depends."
"Everyone keeps saying that."
"Because sometimes the answer actually depends."
I put the notebook on the counter.
May you like
"Tell me about Ethan Cole."
Mercer's face became serious.
