Chương 3
For a second, relief replaced suspicion.
Then suspicion returned.
She opened the door halfway.
“What are you doing here?”
Jonah looked at her face.
“You look like you spent the night fighting with a computer.”
“Close.”
“Did the computer win?”
Mara did not smile.
His expression changed.
“What happened?”
She stepped aside.
Jonah entered carefully, like he was walking into a room where something fragile had been broken.
He set the coffee down.
“Your mother called me.”
Mara looked up.
“She did what?”
“She didn’t tell me details.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because she sounded scared.”
Mara stared at him.
“You talked to my mother without telling me?”
Jonah rubbed his forehead.
“That is not how I expected this conversation to start.”
“You thought I would thank you?”
“No.”
He looked tired.
“I thought you would be angry.”
“Good guess.”
Jonah had worked with Mara for four years.
He knew when to argue and when not to.
That was one reason she trusted him.
It was also one reason she was currently annoyed with him.
“What did she say?”
“Almost nothing.”
“That means something.”
“It means she called me at five in the morning and asked if you were safe.”
Mara looked away.
“She said that?”
“She asked if you were alone.”
The room became quiet.
Mara picked up her coffee but did not drink it.
“She gave something to Daniel Kerr.”
Jonah’s face changed slightly.
It was small.
Almost invisible.
But Mara noticed.
“You know that name.”
Jonah looked at the floor.
“I know the name.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
He paused.
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because you reacted.”
“I reacted because you said your mother gave something to a man connected to your sister’s disappearance.”
“That’s not why.”
Jonah did not answer.
Mara put the coffee down.
“Jonah.”
He sighed.
“Daniel Kerr used to work with my father.”
The answer landed differently than she expected.
“Your father?”
“Years ago.”
“Doing what?”
Jonah walked to the window.
“My father worked in corporate investigations.”
Mara waited.
“He handled internal problems for companies.”
“That is a vague way to describe something.”
“It’s a vague job.”
She watched him carefully.
Jonah was usually direct.
He was the person who could tell an attorney they had missed something without making them defensive.
Seeing him avoid a sentence bothered her more than the sentence itself.
“What company?”
He looked back at her.
“Northbridge.”
Mara felt the room shift.
Not physically.
Something inside her did.
“You knew.”
“I knew my father worked there.”
“You knew Lena was connected to them.”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Mara noticed.
Jonah noticed her noticing.
“I didn’t know about Lena.”
“But you knew something.”
“I knew my father hated that company.”
“Why?”
Jonah sat down.
For the first time since he arrived, he looked uncertain.
“He said they were good at making problems disappear.”
Mara crossed her arms.
“That sounds dramatic.”
“He was dramatic.”
“Was he wrong?”
Jonah looked at the coffee on the table.
“My father died three years ago.”
Mara softened slightly.
“I didn’t know.”
“Most people didn’t.”
“Was it related?”
“I don’t know.”
The honesty in his voice stopped her.
Not because it comforted her.
Because it sounded like the truth.
Jonah reached into his bag and pulled out his phone.
“I found something before I came here.”
Mara watched him open an email.
“I searched my father’s old files.”
“You had access?”
“After he died, my mother gave me his computer.”
“That’s not exactly legal.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“But neither is changing police records.”
Mara said nothing.
He turned the screen toward her.
There was a scanned document.
A list of names.
Most of them meant nothing.
One name did.
Lena Voss.
Mara felt her stomach tighten.
The document was dated one month before Lena disappeared.
“What is this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jonah.”
“I’m serious.”
He pointed at the page.
“My father kept thousands of documents. Some were investigations. Some were notes. Some were things he never finished.”
“Why was Lena’s name there?”
“I don’t know.”
Mara looked closer.
Next to Lena’s name was a handwritten symbol.
A circle with a line through it.
She recognized it.
Not from the case.
From Lena’s old notebook.
Lena used to draw that symbol beside things she considered unsafe.
Mara had always thought it was just one of her sister’s strange habits.
Now it looked different.
A warning.
A system.
A language.
“What else is in the file?”
Jonah hesitated.
“There is one more page.”
He scrolled.
Mara saw a photograph attached to the document.
Her own face appeared on the screen.
She stepped back.
“What?”
The picture showed her leaving her office.
Taken from across the street.
The date was six years ago.
A year after Lena vanished.
Mara felt suddenly exposed.
“Why is there a picture of me?”
Jonah did not answer.
She looked at him.
“Why is there a picture of me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I don’t have another answer.”
Mara grabbed her coat.
“Where are you going?”
“To find Daniel Kerr.”
Jonah stood.
“That is exactly what someone would expect you to do.”
She stopped.
“What?”
“If someone wanted you to walk toward him, they would leave a trail pointing at him.”
Mara looked at the photograph.
“At least it’s a trail.”
“Or a trap.”
The words irritated her because they sounded like something Lena would have said.
“You think I should do nothing?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Jonah looked at her.
“I think you need to understand why your sister disappeared before you let someone else choose the next move.”
Mara wanted to argue.
Instead, she looked at the old photograph of Lena.
The woman in the image was alive.
That was the only thing that mattered.
Until it wasn’t.
Her phone rang.
The unknown number.
Neither of them moved.
The screen continued glowing between them.
Jonah whispered, “Don’t answer that.”
Mara looked at him.
“Why?”
May you like
Because he looked afraid.
Not for himself.
