Chương 7
The Foster home looked insultingly normal.
A package sat on the porch.
The grass needed cutting.
One of Ben’s sneakers lay beside the front step.
Nate stopped when he saw it.
Ortiz waited.
He picked up the shoe.
There was dried mud around the sole.
He placed it inside the doorway.
Then he stood in the entry and smelled Leah’s shampoo from somewhere that could not possibly have still held it.
The house was too quiet.
Sloan began documenting the search.
Nate remained near the door until she told him he could lead them to the garage.
He did.
Leah’s car was not there.
Of course it was not there.
The empty half of the garage hurt more than anything inside the hospital had.
Nate walked to his workbench.
The aluminum tube was gone.
He stopped.
Sloan nearly walked into him.
“What?”
“It was there.”
“Where?”
He pointed to the shelf.
Dust marked the place where the tube had rested.
Ortiz looked around.
“Could your wife have moved it?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she hated touching my stuff.”
It sounded stupid.
It was also true.
Sloan crouched near the workbench.
A cardboard box had been pulled halfway from a lower shelf.
Nate stared at it.
“I didn’t leave that like that.”
“Don’t touch anything.”
He stepped back.
They searched the garage.
The tube was not there.
Neither was Leah’s old laptop.
Nate had not known the laptop was missing until Sloan asked.
He sat on a five-gallon bucket and stared at the empty shelf.
Marcus had a key.
Nate had given him one years earlier.
For emergencies.
The phrase made him sick.
Ortiz checked with neighbors.
A doorbell camera across the street had recorded a dark sedan arriving at 11:46 the previous night.
A man entered Nate’s house.
The angle did not show his face clearly.
He stayed twenty-three minutes.
He left carrying something long and narrow.
Nate watched the recording once.
The man’s walk was enough.
Marcus had injured his right knee at thirty-six.
Most people never noticed the slight hitch.
Nate did.
“That’s him.”
Sloan did not say she agreed.
“Can you identify him from this image?”
“Yes.”
“Based on what?”
“The way he walks.”
“That may help. It may not be enough by itself.”
“He was in my house.”
“Probably.”
“Using my key.”
“Possibly.”
“He took the tube.”
“Likely.”
Nate turned on her.
“Can you stop doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Leaving five percent of the universe open.”
“Yes.”
“Will you?”
“No.”
Ortiz came back inside.
“The neighbor remembers the car. Says it parked there once last month too.”
Nate frowned.
“When?”
“She’s checking.”
Sloan looked toward the garage.
“Your wife may have known someone was entering the house.”
Nate remembered Leah changing the alarm code.
He had complained because she did it without telling him.
She said the keypad had been acting strange.
He had believed her because he had been leaving for three days and did not want another argument.
He sat down again.
A pattern had been forming around him while he had been busy refusing to see it.
That evening, the military placed Nate on temporary administrative leave.
The call came from his commanding officer.
There was no accusation in the man’s voice.
That was almost worse.
“We need distance while investigators sort through the contracting issue.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You should get counsel.”
Nate looked through the hospital window at Ben eating gelatin.
“Am I being investigated?”
“I am telling you to get counsel.”
“That sounds like a yes.”
“It sounds like me telling you to get counsel.”
Nate nodded even though the man could not see him.
After the call, he opened his email.
Three messages already waited from people at work who had heard something.
One asked whether he was okay.
One said, Call if you need anything.
The third contained only a link to a local news story.
Decorated Officers Connected to Hospital Investigation After Child’s Crash.
Nate did not open it.
Rachel did.
“That picture of you is terrible.”
“Helpful.”
“You look like you’re threatening the photographer.”
“I usually am.”
“They mention the gun.”
“Of course they do.”
“They mention the axe too.”
“Good. Balance.”
Rachel almost smiled.
Then the expression disappeared.
“They know Leah died.”
Nate looked at her phone.
A photograph of Leah had been pulled from an old community charity page.
She was laughing at something outside the frame.
Nate had taken that photograph.
He remembered the joke.
He did not tell Rachel.
“People are sharing it,” she said.
“Turn it off.”
“I’m just telling you.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“You may need to.”
“Not tonight.”
Rachel put the phone away.
Ben looked up from his gelatin.
“Am I famous?”
“No,” Nate and Rachel said together.
Ben considered that.
“Good.”
Three days after the crash, Celia Hart came to see Ben.
She was not supposed to be working.
The hospital had not forbidden her from visiting.
Nobody had forbidden Nate from buying her coffee downstairs.
They sat in a corner of the cafeteria beside a vending machine that hummed loudly enough to fill uncomfortable pauses.
Celia wore jeans, a black sweatshirt, and a bandage above her temple.
Without scrubs, she looked smaller.
More tired.
Nate handed her the coffee.
“I didn’t know what you take.”
“Black is fine.”
“It isn’t black.”
She looked inside.
There was too much cream.
“I’ll survive.”
Nate sat.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Finally he said, “Thank you.”
Celia looked at him.
“For what?”
“My son.”
“We don’t know what I prevented.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”
“They’re right.”
“You were there.”
“So was I, and I don’t know everything.”
Nate leaned back.
“You slapped my brother.”
“Yes.”
“With commitment.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Celia took a sip.
Her mouth twisted at the coffee.
“That’s terrible.”
“I warned you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Why did you slap him?”
She stared into the cup.
“Because I lost my temper.”
“That’s it?”
May you like
“You want a noble answer?”
“I want the true one.”
