Chương 8
Mara frowned.
"What do you mean, no?"
"I mean that letter is the only thing in this house you have right now that belongs to you."
She looked at him.
The distinction bothered her because it felt true.
The house had never really been hers.
Her father had left it to her legally, but ownership was a strange thing when every room carried someone else's silence.
The hallway still had the scratch marks from when she and her father moved furniture after her mother left.
The kitchen cabinet still stuck because he never fixed the hinge.
The back bedroom still smelled faintly like old books and dust, even after years of cleaning.
She hated that a person could leave so much behind without actually staying.
"I need to see the documents," she said.
Ruiz sighed.
"I thought you might."
"That sounded like you were hoping I wouldn't."
"I was hoping you would go somewhere safe first."
"I don't know you well enough for you to decide what safe means."
He accepted that without arguing.
That surprised her.
Most people defended themselves when accused.
Her father had.
Always.
Whenever Mara confronted him about anything, he would explain the reason behind his actions before admitting whether the actions had hurt her.
Ruiz simply stood there and let the accusation exist.
It made her uncomfortable.
"Fine," he said.
"Fine?"
They walked toward the back bedroom.
The floorboards creaked beneath their feet.
Mara noticed the sound and almost smiled.
She had heard that sound thousands of times.
As a child, she used to count the steps from her bedroom to the kitchen because she believed the house had a rhythm.
Three steps past the hallway picture.
Four steps near the closet.
One loud creak before the kitchen tile.
She had forgotten about that until now.
A strange thing about grief was that it did not always return through important memories.
Sometimes it arrived through a floorboard.
The bedroom looked exactly the same and completely different.
The contractor had moved the bed against the wall.
The closet doors were open.
A thin layer of dust covered the furniture that Mara had not touched since the funeral.
Ruiz crouched near the damaged section.
"The container was here."
He pointed beneath the opening.
"Your father built this space?"
Mara shook her head.
"Not that I know of."
"Someone did."
She stepped closer.
The hidden compartment was not large.
A person would not notice it unless they were looking.
That fact bothered her.
Her father had not hidden something in the house by accident.
He had chosen a place.
He had made a decision.
And he had decided not to tell her.
"What was in it?" she asked.
"Documents, photographs, and a small recorder."
Mara looked at him.
"A recorder?"
"Old one."
"Does it work?"
"We don't know yet."
"Who is working on it?"
"The department."
She almost laughed.
"That sounds expensive."
"It is."
"Do you always talk like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like everything is a report."
Ruiz looked around the room.
"When you do this job long enough, you learn that words become evidence."
Mara crossed her arms.
"And feelings?"
"Feelings become reasons people make decisions."
The answer was quiet.
Not defensive.
She looked away first.
On the dresser sat an old photograph.
She picked it up.
It showed her at seventeen.
Her father stood beside her at a lake.
She remembered that day.
Not because it was special.
Because it was ordinary.
He had forgotten sunscreen.
She had complained about it.
He had said getting burned was part of becoming someone who had stories.
She had told him that was the stupidest thing she had ever heard.
Then she had spent the entire afternoon reading in the shade while he fished.
They had barely spoken.
At the time, she thought that meant they were failing as a family.
Now she wondered if silence had been the only way they knew how to stay together.
"You were close."
Ruiz's voice pulled her back.
Mara placed the photo down.
"We were complicated."
"That is usually what people say when the answer is yes."
She looked at him.
"Are you always this annoying?"
"Only when people are avoiding obvious things."
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Then her phone buzzed again.
Both of them froze.
Another message.
Mara did not open it immediately.
The screen showed only the first line.
You are making the same mistake your father made.
Ruiz watched her.
"Open it."
She did.
I thought you were smarter than him.
She felt the anger before the fear.
It was sudden and sharp.
Not because someone threatened her.
Because someone had compared her to her father.
A man she had spent eleven years trying not to become.
"Do you know who this number belongs to?" she asked.
Ruiz took the phone.
"No."
"Can you find out?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
"People think phones are magic."
He handed it back.
"They are not."
The answer annoyed her because it sounded like something her father would have said.
Not the same words.
The same attitude.
The belief that the world was more complicated than people wanted it to be.
She hated how much of him survived inside her.
"I want to know what he was investigating," she said.
Ruiz looked at her carefully.
"Why?"
"Because someone is scared enough to threaten me over it."
"That is one reason."
"What is the other?"
Mara looked down at the photograph.
The girl in the picture looked certain about everything.
She missed being that person.
"The other reason is that my father spent years letting me believe he didn't care."
Ruiz did not interrupt.
"And now I find out he was hiding things because he thought he was protecting me."
She shook her head.
"I don't know which version hurts more."
Ruiz leaned against the wall.
"My father used to do something similar."
Mara looked up.
"You?"
He nodded once.
"Not secrets like this."
"What then?"
May you like
"He would fix things before anyone asked him to."
She waited.
