Chương 2
“Do you want to report it?”
Maya looked again at the bassinet.
“I don’t know.”
It was the first completely truthful thing she had said since Evelyn entered the room.
In the hallway, Daniel heard his mother crying before he saw the tears.
Evelyn stood beside a vending machine with her arms folded tightly across herself.
“You hit my wife,” he said.
“I know.”
“She gave birth this morning.”
“I know what morning it is.”
“What could possibly make you think that was acceptable?”
“Nothing.”
The answer stopped him.
He had expected justification.
Evelyn wiped beneath one eye with the heel of her hand.
“I shouldn’t have touched her.”
“Then what the hell happened?”
She reached into the leather purse hanging from her shoulder.
Daniel immediately caught her wrist.
“No.”
“It’s paper, Daniel.”
“I don’t care.”
She stared at his hand until he released her.
From the purse, Evelyn removed a folded printout.
Daniel recognized the formatting of an email chain.
Several sections had been highlighted in yellow.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your father’s old storage boxes.”
Daniel’s irritation sharpened.
“Dad’s been dead eleven years.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then why are you going through his things today?”
“I wasn’t.”
She pressed the paper flat against the top of the vending machine.
“I was looking for your birth certificate because you said the hospital needed another copy for the insurance paperwork.”
“I said I might need it.”
“You also said you couldn’t find yours.”
“So you searched Dad’s boxes?”
“I searched the cabinet where I keep family documents.”
Daniel glanced toward Maya’s room.
A hospital employee pushed a cart past them, wheels rattling over a seam in the floor.
Someone laughed at the nurses’ station.
The normality of it irritated him.
“What does any of that have to do with Maya?”
Evelyn unfolded another page.
“I found an envelope with your name on it.”
Daniel did not reach for it.
“What name did you find?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Caleb Mercer.”
Nothing happened.
No recognition.
No buried memory.
It was simply a stranger’s name.
“Who is that?”
“I hoped you could tell me.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
Evelyn gave him the first page.
Daniel read the highlighted lines once.
Then again.
The messages were dated six years earlier, three weeks before the night he met Maya at a fundraiser in Chicago.
Most of the exchange was mundane.
Flight information.
A restaurant address.
A request to call after midnight.
Then he reached the sentence his mother had highlighted twice.
Make sure Daniel believes meeting her was accidental.
His stomach tightened.
“Who wrote this?”
“The account belonged to your father.”
Daniel looked up.
“That’s impossible.”
“I checked.”
“Dad was dead five years before I met Maya.”
“Yes.”
“So someone used an old account.”
“That appears to be what happened.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then this proves nothing.”
“No.”
Evelyn’s voice cracked.
“It doesn’t.”
Daniel looked at her sharply.
The certainty she had carried into Maya’s room was gone.
“What else?”
Evelyn pulled out her phone.
“There were archived files attached to the account.”
“How did you even access Dad’s email?”
“I kept his passwords.”
“Eleven years?”
“I never said grief made me normal.”
Daniel looked away.
That sounded like his mother.
Not the woman who had slapped Maya.
His mother.
That made the whole thing worse.
Evelyn opened a photograph.
Daniel stared at it.
Maya stood outside a coffee shop beside a man Daniel had never seen.
The image was grainy and taken from across the street, but Maya was unmistakable.
She looked younger.
Her hair was shorter.
The man beside her had one hand on her shoulder.
At the bottom of the image was a date.
Four days before Daniel and Maya supposedly met for the first time.
“What am I looking at?”
“Read the file name.”
Daniel did.
Mercer_MWilson_contact_confirmed.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
“Who took this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who saved it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why was it in Dad’s account?”
“I don’t know.”
His mother’s voice rose with each answer.
Daniel handed the phone back.
“So you don’t know anything.”
“I know she lied about how she met you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She recognized the name.”
“You hit her and then said something insane while she was lying in a hospital bed.”
“I saw her face.”
“You saw what you wanted to see.”
Evelyn recoiled.
Daniel regretted the sentence immediately.
He did not take it back.
The door opened.
Rachel stepped into the hallway.
“Mr. Carter?”
Daniel turned.
“Is Maya okay?”
“Physically, she appears stable.”
“Can I go in?”
“In a moment.”
Rachel looked at Evelyn.
“You cannot.”
Evelyn nodded.
There was no protest left in her.
Rachel turned back to Daniel.
“Your wife asked to speak with you alone.”
Daniel looked at the papers in his hand.
For six years, Maya had told the story of their first meeting the same way.
She had spilled sparkling water on his jacket.
He had pretended to be annoyed because she was beautiful and he was nervous.
She had laughed at him for wearing a tie to a fundraiser where half the guests wore jeans.
It was one of those family stories repeated so often that people interrupted to supply favorite details.
Daniel folded the email carefully.
“Mom.”
Evelyn looked up.
“Go home.”
“I can explain what I found.”
“You already did.”
“There’s more.”
Daniel stopped.
Evelyn seemed frightened now.
Not angry.
Not vindicated.
Frightened.
“How much more?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He stared at her.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I found the files this morning.”
“You came here without understanding them?”
“I saw Maya’s name.”
“So?”
“I saw yours.”
Daniel said nothing.
Evelyn lowered her voice.
“And I saw what Caleb Mercer was paid.”
Daniel felt the hallway narrow around him.
“Paid for what?”
Evelyn looked toward the closed hospital-room door.
“To put Maya in your path.”
May you like
Daniel stared at his mother until the words stopped sounding like English.
“To put Maya in my path,” he repeated.
