Chương 2
Rachel stared at the photograph.
Her sister Claire had always preferred white houses.
It was a ridiculous thing to notice.
Claire had said dark paint made homes look smaller. She had once driven thirty minutes out of her way because the rental property she and her husband were considering had brown siding and she said brown houses looked tired.
The house behind the girl in the photograph was white.
Rachel touched the edge of the image.
“Where?”
Ryan glanced at Daniel, then back at her. “We’re not giving you the address in this room.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve had this information for about forty seconds.”
“I’ve had a dead child for nine years.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Ryan let that sit.
He was one of those men who did not rush to fill silence. Rachel had noticed it upstairs when he first brought her into the hospital’s executive conference room and asked if she recognized a signature from nine years earlier. She had hated him for the pauses then. She hated him more now.
“Where is Claire?” Rachel asked.
“She’s being contacted.”
“Contacted?”
“Yes.”
“You’re calling her?”
“Another team is.”
“A team where?”
“Rachel.”
She put both palms against the cold edge of the table. “You just showed me a picture of my daughter.”
“We believe the girl in that photograph is your biological daughter.”
“You said she was alive.”
“I said what the evidence supports.”
“Then don’t soften it now.”
“I’m not softening anything.”
“Tell me where she is.”
Ryan’s eyes moved once toward the rabbit on the floor.
“Your sister lives outside Richmond now.”
Virginia.
Rachel stared at him.
Claire had told her she moved to Virginia because her husband, Peter, wanted to be closer to his company’s East Coast office.
That had been seven years ago.
Rachel had helped pack her kitchen.
She had wrapped Claire’s wineglasses in newspaper.
She had driven behind the moving truck for three hours because Claire hated driving alone on interstates.
The room tilted very slightly.
Rachel gripped the table harder.
Daniel said, “Rachel, you need to sit down.”
She turned so fast Marcus tightened his hold.
“You don’t get to tell me what I need.”
“I’m trying to—”
“You held me at a grave.”
Daniel looked away.
That did more damage than any answer could have.
Rachel saw the cemetery as clearly as if the vault glass had turned into another kind of window. Wet October grass. Daniel’s black umbrella. Claire’s hand pressed against Rachel’s back. The tiny white coffin that Rachel had not been allowed to open because the hospital had advised against viewing after what they described as complications during emergency treatment.
She had accepted that.
Not easily.
Not calmly.
But she had accepted it because three doctors, a hospital administrator, her husband, and her sister had all treated the question as settled.
Her baby was dead.
Everybody around her had behaved as though the cruelty was in making Rachel look, not in keeping her from looking.
“Was Claire at the funeral?” Rachel asked.
Daniel said nothing.
“She stood next to me.”
“Rachel—”
“She picked the flowers.”
Ryan closed the archive file.
“Daniel Morgan, I need you to stop talking.”
Daniel’s mouth tightened.
Marcus turned him toward the secured exit.
Rachel stepped around the table.
“Wait.”
Marcus stopped.
Daniel did not turn.
Rachel looked at the back of his head, at the dark hair she had trimmed twice during the pandemic because every barber near them had been closed. She had known the small scar behind his right ear came from falling off a bicycle at twelve. She knew he disliked mustard but would eat it if it was already on something because he hated sending food back. She knew he woke at 4:30 when he was worried and pretended he had gotten up for water.
Nine years.
There had been nine years in which this man had brushed his teeth beside her while knowing their daughter was breathing somewhere else.
“What did you call her?” Rachel asked.
Daniel’s shoulders moved.
“What?”
“My daughter. What name does she use?”
Ryan said, “Rachel—”
“No. He knows.”
Daniel shut his eyes.
Rachel waited.
Finally he said, “Emma.”
The name entered the room quietly.
It hurt more than shouting.
Rachel looked down at the photograph again.
Emma.
The girl had a name Rachel had never chosen.
A room Rachel had never seen.
Teachers Rachel had never met.
Friends whose parents probably had Claire’s phone number.
A pediatrician who had written Claire’s name on forms beside the word Mother.
Rachel had spent nine years speaking to a child named Sophie in her head.
Sophie, because Daniel had wanted Grace and Rachel had thought Grace sounded like a promise adults made when they were trying too hard to be good.
Sophie Morgan.
Seven pounds, one ounce.
Dark hair.
A small half-moon birthmark below the left shoulder blade.
Rachel’s eyes snapped toward Ryan.
“The birthmark.”
He nodded once.
“It’s in the medical photographs we recovered.”
Her knees almost gave.
Ryan moved around the table, not touching her, only positioning himself close enough that she could use the bench if she chose.
She did not.
Marcus led Daniel out.
At the security door Daniel twisted enough to look back.
Rachel met his eyes.
Whatever he saw in her made him stop trying to speak.
The door closed behind him.
The locking mechanism engaged.
For the first time since she had entered the vault, Rachel and Ryan were alone.
She bent down and picked up the rabbit.
Its left ear had folded beneath its body.
Rachel straightened it with her thumb.
“Tell me everything.”
Ryan looked toward the black leather bench.
“I’d rather do that upstairs.”
“No.”
“This room is still part of an active evidence search.”
“Then search.”
“Rachel.”
“Tell me why my child thinks my sister is her mother.”
He studied her for a moment.
May you like
Then he pulled out one of the metal chairs from the evidence table and sat across from her.
Rachel remained standing.
