Chương 4
Apparently Rachel had asked him to tell her about Ethan that same weekend.
Claire put the papers down.
“You used my good news as an excuse.”
“I didn’t want to destroy it.”
“You didn’t want to destroy your life.”
“That too.”
At least that was honest.
Claire looked at the black second phone.
“Unlock it.”
“No.”
The refusal came too quickly.
She nodded.
“Okay.”
Daniel seemed surprised.
Claire picked up her regular phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling a lawyer.”
His face changed.
“Claire.”
“You said no.”
“You don’t need a lawyer tonight.”
“I didn’t know I needed one this morning either.”
He stood.
“Can we have one conversation before lawyers start telling us what our marriage means?”
“Our marriage apparently has a nine-year-old in it.”
“He is not a problem.”
“I did not say he was.”
“I know, but Rachel will make this about what I owe her, what you owe her—”
“What I owe her?”
“That came out wrong.”
Claire stared at him.
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“I know. Everything I say is wrong.”
“No. Some things you did are wrong. Your sentences are just having trouble hiding them.”
For the first time, anger replaced panic in his face.
“You think this is simple?”
“No.”
“You think Rachel is some helpless woman I trapped for ten years?”
“No.”
“You think she never threatened me?”
“I haven’t decided what I think.”
“She has asked for money every time she decides I’m not being enough of a father.”
“She is raising your son.”
“I pay for everything.”
From the doorway came a knock.
Deputy Harris had returned.
Daniel muttered a curse.
The deputy stepped inside.
“We located Ms. Miller’s vehicle.”
Claire stood.
“Where?”
“Parking lot at the bus station in town. Locked. No one inside.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“Was there blood?”
Harris looked at him.
“No.”
Daniel seemed to regret asking.
The deputy continued.
“We’ve entered her as a missing person. At the moment we don’t have evidence of an assault or abduction. We’re continuing to check.”
Claire looked at Rachel’s phone inside the evidence bag.
“Can you find her from that?”
“We’ll work with what we can legally access and what family can provide.”
Not a miracle.
Not an instant answer.
Claire appreciated him for that.
Daniel asked, “Am I free to leave?”
“Yes.”
Claire looked toward the storm.
“Take the SUV.”
Daniel turned to her.
“You’re staying?”
“Yes.”
“With the roads like this?”
“Yes.”
“Claire, come home.”
She almost asked which one.
Instead she said, “Take the SUV.”
He stared at her.
Rainwater ran in silver lines down the glass behind him.
Finally he put on his jacket.
The second phone remained on the table.
Claire noticed.
So did he.
He came back for it.
She put her hand over it.
Daniel stopped.
Neither moved.
Deputy Harris watched without expression.
Claire said, “Leave it.”
“It’s mine.”
“I know.”
“Claire.”
“You spent ten years using it to manage two versions of your life. Leave it for one night.”
Daniel glanced at Harris.
The deputy said, “That’s between you two unless one of you wants to make it something else.”
Daniel looked at Claire again.
Then he removed his hand.
“Fine.”
He walked outside.
Seconds later the black SUV started beneath the covered entrance.
Claire watched the taillights disappear into the storm.
Only after they were gone did she realize she was still wearing the cream blouse she had bought for what was supposed to be an anniversary dinner.
She went into the small bathroom and threw up.
The rain stopped sometime after midnight.
Claire slept for forty-three minutes on the narrow couch in the lake house above the boathouse, woke with one shoe still on, and spent the next hour staring at Daniel’s second phone without touching it.
At two fifteen in the morning she made coffee.
At two twenty she poured it down the sink because it tasted burned.
At two thirty she called her younger brother, then hung up before the first ring finished.
She did not want comfort yet.
Comfort felt too much like accepting that something had happened.
Her marriage still seemed to exist in the rooms around her. Daniel’s jacket hung near the door. His reading glasses sat on the kitchen counter beside a bowl of lemons. Two toothbrushes waited upstairs.
Ordinary things were offensive in a way she had never imagined.
At three twelve, the second phone vibrated.
Claire stared at it.
A message preview appeared.
RACHEL: Is Ethan safe?
Claire picked up the phone.
It required a six-digit passcode.
She tried Ethan’s birthday.
Wrong.
Then she remembered something Ethan had said.
Dad lets me watch baseball on it sometimes.
Children remembered passwords.
She did not.
Claire set the phone down.
Using it without permission suddenly felt different from wanting the truth. She had spent the last several hours learning what happened when one person decided another person was not entitled to make informed choices.
She would not start by becoming Daniel.
She used her own phone.
The unknown number from earlier did not accept calls.
At seven in the morning Mrs. Alvarez called.
Ethan was asleep on her couch.
Rachel had not returned.
Mrs. Alvarez’s name was Elena. She told Claire that Rachel worked as a freelance medical billing specialist and sometimes took evening shifts helping a friend’s small accounting office. She did not drink much. She did not disappear.
“Did she seem afraid of Daniel?” Claire asked.
Elena paused.
“She seemed tired of him.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
“Did she say he threatened her?”
“Not exactly.”
Claire waited.
Elena sighed.
“Rachel said he had started talking about custody.”
Claire sat straighter.
“What about it?”
“She said he told her if she blew up his marriage, he would stop being cooperative.”
“What does cooperative mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she think he would take Ethan?”
“She thought he would try to make her scared enough to stay quiet.”
Claire pressed her thumb against her temple.
May you like
“Has he ever been violent?”
“Not that she told me.”
