Chương 8
Then Ellen asked, "Is there somewhere you can stay tonight?"
Mara hesitated.
"With my parents."
"Would that be safe?"
"Yes."
"Then I recommend it."
Mara looked at Dad.
"My parents don't know."
Dad said, "They should."
She nodded.
On the drive back, Mara barely spoke.
Her phone remained in her lap.
At a red light, she looked at the screen.
"There's another login."
I glanced over.
"From where?"
"Here."
She showed me.
The location was only a few miles from the lawyer's office.
Dad's hands tightened around the steering wheel.
"Could that be the lawyer's system?"
"No."
Mara shook her head.
"It's my email."
The light turned green.
Dad drove through the intersection.
Mara stared at the screen.
Then her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She let it ring.
It stopped.
A minute later, another call came.
Same number.
She answered this one.
"Hello?"
Nobody spoke.
Mara looked at us.
"Hello?"
A man's breathing came through the speaker.
Then the call ended.
She lowered the phone.
Dad said nothing.
I felt my own phone vibrate.
A message had arrived.
You should have stayed out of this.
I showed it to Dad.
Mara leaned over.
"That's his number."
I looked at her.
"Are you sure?"
She nodded.
"He blocked me yesterday."
"Then how did he send that?"
She stared at the screen.
"I don't know."
Dad pulled into a gas station.
"We're stopping."
"Why?"
"Because I need to think."
He parked beside the air pump.
For a minute none of us moved.
A man in a blue uniform came out of the convenience store carrying a cardboard box.
He loaded it into his truck.
A woman nearby was trying to get a vending machine to accept a dollar.
The machine rejected it three times.
She laughed under her breath and tried again.
The normality of it made me feel almost dizzy.
Dad finally turned around.
"Did Ellen say anything about the lockbox?"
Mara nodded.
"She wants to know if it contains financial documents."
"What else could it contain?"
Mara looked at the dashboard.
"My grandmother's will."
Dad's eyes narrowed.
"I thought you had a copy."
"I do."
"Then why does it matter?"
"Because the original has a handwritten amendment."
She paused.
"An amendment that changes who gets the house if I'm unable to keep it."
Dad went silent.
I looked at Mara.
"Who gets it?"
She swallowed.
"My child."
The words came softly.
"Not Daniel?"
"No."
"Then why would he care about the lockbox?"
Mara stared through the windshield.
"Because the amendment also says he can't sell or refinance the property without my consent."
Dad leaned back.
"So that's what he's after."
"Maybe."
Mara shook her head.
"I don't know."
The uncertainty bothered me.
There was still too much we didn't know.
The lockbox might explain the money.
It might explain the house.
It might explain why Daniel had suddenly become so desperate.
But it didn't explain the filthy braid.
That had been deliberate.
That had been public.
That had been meant to make Mara smaller in front of people who knew her.
I said it aloud.
"Why the hair?"
Mara didn't answer immediately.
Then she said, "Because he needed witnesses."
Dad looked at her.
"What witnesses?"
"People who would remember that I obeyed him."
Her voice was almost a whisper.
"He told me if I ever tried to leave, he'd tell everyone I was unstable."
She looked down at her hands.
"He said he'd make sure my family believed I was the problem."
Dad closed his eyes.
I understood then why the party mattered.
It wasn't just humiliation.
It was preparation.
Daniel had been building a version of Mara that he could present to other people.
A difficult wife.
An emotional wife.
A woman who needed supervision.
If enough people believed it, every accusation she made could be dismissed as another episode.
Mara looked at me.
"That's why I asked you to come."
"Because you needed witnesses?"
"Because I needed somebody who hadn't already decided who I was."
Dad reached across the console and squeezed her shoulder.
She leaned against his hand for a second.
Then her phone buzzed.
A new message appeared.
This one wasn't from Daniel's number.
It was a photograph.
Mara opened it.
Her face went white.
I leaned closer.
The photograph showed the inside of her hall closet.
The cardboard box was sitting on the floor.
The lid was open.
Every envelope inside was visible.
Someone had taken the photograph recently.
Mara zoomed in.
In the corner of the image, reflected faintly in a mirror, was a man's shoulder.
He was wearing a dark jacket.
Dad stared at the screen.
"Where was that taken?"
Mara whispered the answer.
"Inside my house."
Her phone buzzed again.
This time the message contained only four words.
You left something behind.
Mara looked at me.
Then at Dad.
"I didn't."
The car seemed suddenly too small for the three of us.
I looked again at the photograph.
Something was wrong.
Not with the box.
Not with the closet.
With the reflection.
The jacket had a small silver button near the shoulder.
I had seen that button before.
That morning.
At the party.
On the photographer's coat.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
Dad noticed.
"What?"
I pointed at the screen.
"The photographer."
Mara stared at me.
"Why would he have a picture of my closet?"
I didn't have an answer.
But the thought arrived anyway.
Maybe the photographer had never been there for the anniversary.
Maybe Daniel had hired him for something else.
And if that was true, then the photograph in Mara's phone wasn't proof that Daniel had entered the house.
It was proof that someone had been inside with access to the rooms.
Someone who had spent the entire evening walking freely among us.
Someone none of us had thought to watch.
Someone none of us had thought to watch.
Dad took the phone from Mara's hand.
"Don't delete this."
May you like
"I won't."
He enlarged the reflection until the image blurred.
