Chương 3
The assistant stepped closer to Daniel.
Her name, Ethan would later learn, was Rachel Kim.
At that moment she was only a stranger who seemed to know more about his father than Ethan did.
“Daniel,” she said, “get him inside.”
Daniel looked at Ethan.
“Can we go in?”
Ethan looked past him at Vale.
“No.”
Daniel nodded.
“All right.”
That surprised Ethan.
He expected persuasion.
Adults loved persuasion when they wanted something.
Daniel only loosened his tie.
“We’ll stay here.”
Rachel frowned.
“It’s forty degrees.”
“He said no.”
“He’s shivering.”
“I know.”
Ethan was.
He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.
One pocket contained thirty-eight dollars.
The other contained the motel room key he had accidentally taken with him.
He had not realized until the bus left Pueblo.
That key bothered him.
Not because Lynn needed it. She could get another one.
Because it meant something about leaving in a hurry that Ethan did not like admitting.
He looked at Daniel.
“Did you know Mom died?”
Daniel’s face went blank.
Not confused.
Blank.
As though every mechanism in him had shut down at once.
Ethan felt the answer before Daniel spoke.
“No.”
The anger came fast.
Hotter than the shame.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“Six months.”
Daniel swallowed.
“I didn’t know.”
“She was sick for a year.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t call?”
“I called.”
“When?”
“Every number I had.”
Ethan laughed again.
It sounded ugly this time.
“My mom had the same phone number for eight years.”
Daniel’s forehead creased.
“No, she didn’t.”
“Yes, she did.”
“No.”
Ethan stepped closer.
“Yes.”
Daniel stared at him.
“What number?”
Ethan said it.
Rachel’s head lifted.
Daniel did not react at first.
Then he pulled his phone from his pocket.
Rain dotted the screen.
He unlocked it and scrolled quickly.
His hands were shaking worse now.
He found something and held the phone toward Ethan.
“That’s the number I had.”
Ethan looked.
Different number.
Same area code.
Different last four digits.
“So?”
Daniel looked toward Vale again.
“So somebody changed it.”
Vale shook his head.
“I had nothing to do with your personal contacts.”
“No one said you did.”
The revolving doors turned.
A hotel employee came outside carrying Ethan’s album.
The young bellman who had tried to pick it up earlier.
Vale’s expression hardened.
“I told you to leave that.”
The bellman hesitated.
Daniel said, “Give it to Ethan.”
The boy handed it over.
Ethan hugged the wet leather against his chest.
“Thank you.”
The bellman nodded.
“Sure.”
He glanced at Daniel.
Then Vale.
Then the cameras.
“I saw what happened.”
Vale’s face tightened.
The bellman retreated inside.
Daniel looked at his son.
“Can I ask where you came from?”
“Pueblo.”
“Tonight?”
“Yesterday.”
Daniel stared.
“You traveled here from Pueblo alone?”
Ethan hated the sound of it when spoken aloud.
It made him sound stupid.
“I’m not a baby.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You were going to.”
“No.”
“You were thinking it.”
Daniel almost smiled.
Not because anything was funny.
The expression arrived automatically and disappeared.
“You may have inherited that from your mother.”
Ethan’s anger sharpened.
“Don’t.”
Daniel nodded.
“Okay.”
Sirens became audible somewhere below the hotel road.
Vale looked toward the entrance.
“Daniel, this can still be dealt with internally.”
Daniel did not answer.
Rachel did.
“No, it can’t.”
Two sheriff’s department SUVs appeared through the rain several minutes later.
By then a manager had brought blankets outside.
Ethan accepted one only after Rachel took it instead of Daniel.
He wrapped it around himself while refusing to go indoors.
The deputies spoke first to Vale.
Then Daniel.
Then Ethan.
The deputy who questioned Ethan was a woman named Reyes. She crouched so they were closer to eye level but did not use a baby voice.
Ethan appreciated that.
“Did Mr. Vale hurt you?”
“My shoulder.”
“Can I see?”
Ethan moved the blanket.
There would not be a bruise yet.
Reyes examined the spot without touching.
“Did he strike you?”
“No.”
“The object?”
“My album.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“He told me to leave.”
“Anything else?”
Ethan looked toward Daniel, who stood beneath the hotel canopy talking to another deputy.
“He said my dad paid them to keep me away.”
Reyes followed his gaze.
“Did you believe him?”
Ethan thought about it.
“At first.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer seemed to bother Daniel even though he was too far away to hear it.
Maybe Ethan imagined that.
Maybe he wanted Daniel to be bothered.
The deputies would not let Ethan remain outside.
Not because Daniel asked.
Because Reyes said a soaked twelve-year-old who had traveled overnight alone needed warmth, food, and possibly medical attention.
Ethan argued.
He lost.
Inside the hotel, the guests had scattered, though not completely. Some lingered in the lounge pretending to drink. Two phones disappeared quickly when Reyes looked toward them.
Ethan sat in a small conference room behind reception with a towel around his shoulders and hot chocolate he did not want.
Daniel sat across from him.
Rachel remained near the door.
A deputy took Vale somewhere else.
Nobody spoke for almost a minute.
Ethan opened the album.
The leather had scratched when it hit the floor.
Water had seeped into the first two pages.
He wiped them carefully.
Daniel watched.
Ethan noticed.
“This is Mom’s.”
Daniel nodded.
“I remember it.”
“She said you bought it.”
“I did.”
“For your anniversary.”
Daniel looked surprised.
“You knew that?”
“She told me.”
Ethan turned a page.
Pictures of him as a baby.
Pictures of his mother younger than Ethan remembered her.
Pictures of Daniel.
A lot of Daniel.
That had always confused him.
His mother almost never spoke about Ethan’s father, but she had never thrown the photographs away.
Ethan stopped on one.
Daniel crouched beside a crib assembling something with a screwdriver.
His mother had written on the white margin in blue ink:
HE REFUSED TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.
May you like
Ethan angled the photograph toward Daniel.
“That true?”
