Chương 8
A habit he had developed after his father’s funeral.
He hated that he still did it.
He hated that grief had left behind little physical routines like fingerprints.
“What was in the collection?” he asked.
Rachel opened another page.
“That is what we are trying to determine.”
“That means you don’t know.”
“We know some items are missing.”
“Which items?”
She studied him.
“A journal.”
Daniel stopped moving.
Only for a moment.
But Rachel noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That reaction was not nothing.”
Daniel looked at the photograph again.
“I haven’t seen my father’s journal since before he died.”
“Who had it?”
“My father.”
“After he died?”
“No one.”
Rachel folded her hands.
“Mr. Mercer, your sister claims you took possession of several personal items from your father’s house before the estate was finalized.”
Daniel looked up sharply.
“My sister said that?”
“Yes.”
A bitter laugh escaped him.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was familiar.
“She would.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Claire has spent half her life believing every disagreement is proof that someone is betraying her.”
“Is she wrong?”
Daniel did not answer.
The silence changed.
Rachel noticed that too.
Daniel hated that everyone noticed everything except the things that mattered.
“She thinks I hid something,” he said.
“Did you?”
The question landed harder than he expected.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
He heard it.
Rachel heard it.
Daniel looked down.
“I mean…”
He stopped.
Because there was a difference between hiding something and refusing to talk about something.
He had spent eleven years pretending those were the same thing.
Outside the station, rain started falling.
Daniel watched it through the narrow window beside the interview room.
He remembered his father standing in the garage years earlier, holding an old cardboard box.
“You ever notice how people think the truth is the thing they want most?” his father had said.
Daniel had been twenty-eight and impatient.
“What else would they want?”
His father smiled sadly.
“They want the version of the truth that hurts the least.”
At the time, Daniel thought it was another one of his father’s strange comments.
His father collected old letters, broken watches, forgotten photographs.
He treated every object like it had a voice.
Daniel had always found that exhausting.
Now, sitting in a police station because of something connected to those objects, he wondered if his father had been trying to warn him.
Rachel closed the folder.
“I need to ask you one more thing.”
Daniel waited.
“Why did your father leave the archive collection to the county instead of the family?”
The question bothered him because he did not know the answer.
For years, he had told himself it was because his father loved history.
That was easier.
But there had always been another possibility.
Maybe his father trusted strangers more than he trusted his own children.
“I don’t know,” Daniel said.
Rachel watched him carefully.
“Your sister says you do.”
“Claire says a lot of things.”
“She also says your father was afraid of someone before he died.”
Daniel looked toward the rain.
The sound against the glass reminded him of another night.
A hospital hallway.
A vending machine humming.
His father unable to finish a sentence.
Daniel had spent years trying not to remember the exact words.
Not because they were unclear.
Because they were clear.
“Don’t let them turn you against each other.”
That was what his father had whispered.
At the time, Daniel thought he was talking about the family.
Now he wondered who else “they” had been.
The detective stood.
“You can leave for now.”
Daniel looked surprised.
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
“What happens next?”
Rachel picked up the folder.
“That depends on what we find.”
He walked out into the rain without an umbrella.
He usually kept one in his car.
Today he forgot.
Halfway across the parking lot, he stopped and looked back at the station.
A strange feeling settled over him.
Not fear exactly.
Something older.
Something he had buried because dealing with it would have meant admitting his father had left behind a problem instead of a memory.
When Daniel reached his car, his phone rang.
The name on the screen made him freeze.
Claire.
He almost ignored it.
Almost.
Then he answered.
“Hello?”
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “You talked to them.”
Daniel looked at the rain dripping from his sleeve.
“How do you know?”
“Because they talked to me too.”
He closed his eyes.
“What did you tell them?”
A pause.
A long one.
“Daniel.”
The way she said his name made him grip the phone tighter.
“What?”
“I found something in Dad’s house.”
His breathing slowed.
“What?”
“I think you already know.”
He hated those words.
He hated that after eleven years, his sister still knew exactly where to place the knife.
“Claire.”
“It’s about the journal.”
The rain grew louder.
“What did you find?”
Another pause.
Then her voice changed.
Not angry.
Not accusing.
Afraid.
“I found the last page.”
For a moment, Daniel could not hear anything except the rain hitting the roof of the car.
“What does that mean?”
Claire breathed in slowly.
“It means the journal wasn’t finished.”
Daniel stared through the windshield at the blurred shapes of people moving through the parking lot.
“Claire, what are you talking about?”
“I found the journal in the house.”
“You said you didn’t have it.”
“I didn’t know I had it.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.”
Her voice cracked slightly, and that bothered him more than the words.
Claire rarely sounded uncertain.
She sounded angry when she was hurt, sarcastic when she was scared, and cold when she wanted to pretend she did not care.
Uncertainty was something he almost never heard from her.
“Where did you find it?”
“In Dad’s office.”
“His office was cleaned out after the funeral.”
“By who?”
Daniel looked away.
He knew the answer before she said it.
“By you.”
May you like
The accusation was quiet.
That made it worse.
