Chương 4
She was asleep.
Her eyelashes lay against her cheeks, and one fist was tangled in the cord of my hoodie.
“I thought she was pathetic,” I said quietly.
Daniel did not respond.
“I thought she was lonely and dramatic and mean.”
“She is all of those things.”
“I didn’t think she was dangerous.”
“No.”
“You did.”
He looked at me then.
There was no satisfaction in his face.
“I was scared she might become dangerous.”
“That’s worse.”
“How?”
“Because you warned me.”
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
“Emily, I also said we should buy a generator because of one snowstorm.”
Despite myself, I let out a short laugh.
It came out ugly and wet.
Daniel looked almost guilty for making me laugh.
“I’m serious.”
“You researched generators for three weeks.”
“And then didn’t buy one.”
“You made a spreadsheet.”
“It was a strong spreadsheet.”
The laugh disappeared as quickly as it came.
I leaned my head against the wall.
Daniel reached for my hand.
This time I let him take it.
My phone vibrated again.
Caleb.
Daniel saw the name and his fingers tightened around mine.
The call ended.
Then another message came.
Please.
Then another.
She lied to me.
I stared at the words until they blurred.
Daniel read them silently.
“Do you believe that?”
he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You always believe him.”
The irritation in his voice made me pull my hand away.
“He’s twenty-five.”
“He’s not twelve.”
“I didn’t say he was.”
“You treat him like he is whenever he screws up.”
“Can we not do this right now?”
“This is exactly when we do it.”
I looked at him sharply.
Lily stirred against me.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“He gave someone our flight information after we explicitly told him not to.”
“We don’t know what he gave her.”
“We know enough.”
“No, Patricia said enough.”
“And Caleb just said she lied to him, which means they talked.”
I hated that he had reached the conclusion faster.
I hated him a little for sounding reasonable.
That made me feel worse.
Before I could answer, Reyes returned.
“We’d like to speak with your brother.”
My stomach knotted.
“Is he in trouble?”
“That depends on what happened.”
“Can I call him first?”
Reyes considered me for a moment.
“I’d rather you didn’t discuss facts with him before we speak to him.”
“He’s scared.”
“That may be true.”
There was nothing cruel in his tone.
“He may also have information we need before memories get influenced.”
Daniel nodded.
I did not.
Reyes asked for Caleb’s number.
I gave it to him.
He stepped into the hall to make the call.
Through the open door, I heard him identify himself.
There was a pause.
Then his voice became firmer.
“No, sir, I’m not accusing you of anything.”
Another pause.
“I understand.”
A longer one.
“You can come here voluntarily, or we can arrange to speak somewhere else.”
I closed my eyes.
The airport announcement system chimed somewhere beyond the office walls.
Our flight was probably pushing back from the gate.
People were putting their phones into airplane mode.
Someone was complaining about overhead bin space.
Someone’s toddler was kicking the seat in front of him.
Our suitcases were still tagged for Seattle.
I wondered, irrationally, whether they had been loaded onto the plane without us.
The thought became important enough that I almost asked.
Then Reyes came back.
“Your brother is on his way.”
Daniel looked at the clock.
“He’s in Boston?”
I stared at Reyes.
Caleb lived in Providence.
Or he was supposed to.
Reyes glanced between us.
“He says he’s about fifteen minutes away.”
I felt the room tilt.
“Why?”
“I asked him that.”
“And?”
“He said he came to the airport because Patricia called him from the parking garage.”
Daniel stood up.
The chair legs scraped hard against the floor.
“He was here?”
“Sit down,” I said.
He did not.
“Emily, he was here.”
Reyes raised one hand, not threateningly.
“We don’t know exactly what happened yet.”
Daniel paced once to the printer and back.
I looked at my phone.
Caleb’s messages suddenly had a different weight.
Before you talk to the police.
I didn’t know what she was going to do.
She lied to me.
Not I’m sorry I told her.
Not Are you okay?
Not Is Lily okay?
I opened our message thread.
The last thing Caleb had sent before this morning was a photograph two days earlier of a dented green tackle box he had found in Dad’s storage unit.
Keep or toss?
I had replied, Keep.
Nothing about Patricia.
Nothing about the airport.
Nothing about meeting her.
A memory arrived with humiliating clarity.
Caleb on Sunday, after I told him not to tell Patricia where we were going, had gone quiet for half a second.
Then he had said, Sure, Em, relax.
I had heard the pause.
I had chosen not to examine it.
Because examining Caleb usually meant discovering a problem I would then feel obligated to solve.
Money.
A broken lease.
A job he had quit without another one lined up.
A girlfriend he swore he was done with.
Our father had spent years rescuing him while pretending it was temporary.
After Dad died, I had inherited the habit without admitting it.
Daniel sat again.
His anger had settled into something colder.
“What would Patricia have to say to get him to come here?”
I knew before I answered.
“Dad.”
Daniel looked at me.
“She’d use Dad.”
Patricia had understood one thing about Caleb better than anyone.
He could resist criticism.
He could resist guilt if you gave him enough time.
He could not resist the suggestion that our father had left something unfinished.
Reyes watched my face.
“What does that mean?”
I swallowed.
“She probably told him she found something from my father.”
“What kind of thing?”
“I don’t know.”
Money.
A letter.
A confession.
May you like
A watch.
With Patricia, the object did not matter as much as the claim that Dad had wanted Caleb to have it.
