Chương 6
Records office.
The reply came immediately.
Leave.
He frowned.
Why?
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Finally, a message arrived.
Because if Ethan sent you that document, he already knows someone else found the letter.
Daniel stood.
The folder almost slipped from his hand.
He called her.
She answered after one ring.
“Daniel.”
“What does that mean?”
“Where exactly are you?”
“The records office.”
“Are you alone?”
He looked around.
The room had changed.
Same walls.
Same people.
But suddenly every stranger felt like someone who could be connected to something he did not understand.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Rebecca.”
“Answer me.”
The urgency in her voice stopped him.
“Ten minutes.”
“Go outside.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know who is watching.”
Daniel walked toward the exit.
He hated how easily the sentence affected him.
A week ago, he would have dismissed it.
He would have called it paranoia.
Now paranoia had paperwork.
Outside, the wind moved through the parking lot.
Daniel stepped away from the building.
“Talk.”
Rebecca was quiet.
Then she said, “Claire never wanted you involved.”
The words felt like a betrayal.
“She signed something with me.”
“No.”
“She did.”
“She wanted you to sign something.”
Daniel froze.
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that Claire believed if you knew the whole story, you would try to protect her.”
“I would have.”
“I know.”
The way Rebecca said it made him angry.
Not because she doubted him.
Because she believed him.
And somehow that made everything worse.
“What happened to her father?”
Rebecca took a slow breath.
“Thomas Ellison was not supposed to be investigating anything.”
“Anything?”
“He found inconsistencies in the records connected to his property.”
“Financial?”
“Partly.”
“What else?”
“I don’t know everything.”
Daniel laughed once.
A quiet, exhausted sound.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
Rebecca did not answer immediately.
When she did, her voice was lower.
“Thomas believed someone had changed documents after his wife died.”
Daniel looked back at the county building.
“Claire thought someone covered it up.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew?”
“I knew she was scared.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know.”
The honesty made him stop.
Rebecca had always been good at avoiding fights.
Now she sounded like someone too tired to avoid anything.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Claire asked me not to.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
There it was again.
Another person choosing Claire's secrets over his need to understand.
“She trusted you more than me.”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
Daniel opened his eyes.
Rebecca continued.
“She trusted you differently.”
“That sounds like something people say when they don’t want to admit the truth.”
“Maybe.”
A pause.
“Or maybe Claire knew you loved her enough to destroy yourself trying to save her.”
The parking lot felt suddenly too open.
Daniel looked at the road.
He thought about every argument they had.
Every moment he believed Claire was choosing silence over him.
Maybe she had been choosing something else.
Maybe she had been choosing a burden she thought only she could carry.
His phone vibrated.
Another message.
This time from Ethan.
A location.
No words.
Daniel looked at it.
Rebecca heard the silence.
“What happened?”
“Ethan sent me somewhere.”
“Where?”
Daniel read the address.
His face changed.
“What?”
“It’s my old house.”
“The one you and Claire lived in?”
“Yes.”
“Daniel, don’t go there.”
He looked toward his car.
“I need to.”
“Why?”
Because for the first time in years, he had a feeling he was not chasing Claire's disappearance.
He was finally walking toward the place where she had tried to leave him a way back.
“Because she left something for me.”
The envelope was waiting for Daniel Price when he arrived at the county records office, and the first thing he noticed was that the clerk behind the counter would not look him in the eye.
Not once.
She kept her attention on the computer screen in front of her, clicking through pages that Daniel suspected she had already read twice.
“Mr. Price,” she said. “I need your signature.”
Daniel looked down at the envelope resting beside the sign-in sheet.
“My signature for what?”
“For receiving the document.”
“What document?”
The clerk’s fingers stopped moving.
It lasted less than a second, but Daniel noticed.
He had learned to notice small things during the years after Claire disappeared. People rarely announced when they were hiding something. They adjusted their voices. They looked away too quickly. They answered questions that had not been asked.
“I’m only responsible for releasing it,” the clerk said.
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
She finally looked at him.
Her expression was not hostile. That almost made it worse.
She looked tired.
“Mr. Price, I don’t know what’s inside.”
“Then why do you look like you wish you didn’t have to give it to me?”
The clerk glanced toward the hallway behind him.
A man in a county employee badge walked past carrying a stack of folders. He did not slow down, but his eyes moved briefly toward the counter.
The clerk lowered her voice.
“I think you should talk to whoever sent it.”
“Who sent it?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
She pushed the form closer.
“Please sign.”
Daniel stared at the paper.
A year ago, he would have argued until someone gave him an answer. He would have believed pressure could force honesty out of people.
Claire had changed that.
Not because she had taught him patience.
Because she had taught him that desperate people could mistake anger for progress.
He signed.
The pen scratched against the paper.
The sound bothered him more than it should have.
He took the envelope and walked outside.
For a few moments, he stood on the courthouse steps without moving.
The city continued around him.
May you like
A delivery driver carried boxes into a restaurant across the street.
A woman in a business suit stopped to fix the strap of her bag before continuing down the sidewalk.
