Chương 4
“I think we missed that opportunity.”
The bakery van had once been white. Years of flour dust, winter salt, and repairs with mismatched paint had turned it the color of old teeth. The wheelchair ramp was a board reinforced with aluminum strips, and Rocco examined it as if judging a bridge designed by an enemy.
“It holds three hundred pounds,” Mara said.
“How much do you think I weigh?”
“I’m choosing not to guess.”
He tested the board with one wheel. “Who built it?”
“My father.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“He also built our back stairs.”
“Did he fall down those?”
Mara looked at him.
“Sorry,” he said, without sounding sorry.
He rolled up the ramp using his arms while Mara steadied the board with one foot. Inside, there were no proper restraints, only cargo straps her father had used when transporting a borrowed wheelchair after his knee surgery. Rocco let her secure the frame but repositioned every strap she touched.
“You do this often?” she asked.
“I used to load freight.”
“Before the chair?”
“Before a lot of things.”
The rain struck the van roof with a hollow metallic roar. Mara climbed behind the wheel and turned the key twice before the engine caught.
Rocco sat behind the passenger seat. “The envelope.”
“You told me to put it away.”
“I’m telling you to show me now.”
“Not while I’m driving.”
“You aren’t driving.”
She looked at the windshield. “The van is moving.”
“You’re still in the parking space.”
Mara pulled onto Cedar Street.
He watched the bakery disappear through the rear window. “Who else knows about it?”
“My father.”
“Who else?”
“No one.”
“You found it yesterday?”
“This morning.”
“Where?”
“Behind the flour bins.”
“Did your father tell you to look there?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did he say?”
Mara tightened her hands around the steering wheel. “He said there was a photograph wrapped in wax paper. He said if I saw a man wearing the ring, I should give him the envelope.”
“And you happened to see me.”
“I deliver breakfast to the salon every Tuesday. Celeste ordered six croissants and two fruit trays for a bridal party.”
“Did she pay?”
“She has an account.”
“Close it.”
“I’m considering it.”
“You aren’t angry enough.”
“I knocked boiling coffee out of her hand.”
“It wasn’t boiling.”
“Thank you, Rocco.”
He went quiet.
At the next light, Mara looked at him in the mirror. His wet shirt clung to the heavy muscle across his chest. Beneath the tattoos, scars crossed his ribs and shoulder. Some were pale and thin. One, near his collarbone, had the puckered shape of an old bullet wound.
“What happened to your legs?” she asked.
“A truck.”
“Accident?”
“That depends who paid the driver.”
The light changed. A horn sounded behind them.
Mara drove.
Saint Agnes Medical Center sat at the edge of Cedar Hollow, a low complex of brick buildings added to one another over several decades without agreement. The emergency entrance had automatic doors that opened too slowly. Mara parked near rehabilitation services, where the curb was cut low enough for the ramp.
Rocco stopped at the bottom.
“What?” she asked.
“If your father is afraid of me, you stay between us.”
“My father isn’t afraid of anyone.”
“He hid an envelope for twenty-three years.”
“That isn’t fear.”
“What is it?”
Mara thought of unpaid bills tucked into recipe books, of her father changing the subject whenever she mentioned selling the bakery, of him refusing to use the cane prescribed after his first fall because customers might think him old.
“I don’t know yet.”
Peter Hale occupied a semiprivate room on the third floor. The second bed was empty, the curtain pulled back. He looked smaller than he had the day before, gray hair flattened against the pillow, one arm bruised from the IV. A bandage covered the cut above his left ear.
His eyes moved first to Mara, then to Rocco.
The monitor beside him quickened.
“You found him,” Peter said.
Rocco remained in the doorway. “Did you know I was in town?”
“Not until yesterday.”
“Who told you?”
“A man came into the bakery.”
“What man?”
“He didn’t give his name. Dark coat. Expensive shoes. Said there was somebody asking about Ray Kesler.”
Rocco wheeled closer. “What did he look like?”
“Fifty. Maybe older. Scar under his chin.”
“Leon Voss.”
Mara said, “Who is that?”
Rocco ignored her. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“And then you fell.”
Peter’s mouth tightened. “I slipped.”
“Dad.”
“I slipped.”
Rocco rolled to the foot of the bed. “Were the shelves on the wall before or after you slipped?”
Peter looked at him.
“That’s what I thought.”
Mara took the envelope from her pocket. Her father’s gaze followed it.
Rocco said, “Open it.”
Peter spoke quickly. “Not here.”
“Why?”
“The door.”
Mara closed it.
Peter shook his head. “Cameras. Hallway.”
“This is a hospital,” Mara said.
“That has never stopped a camera.”
Rocco examined the ceiling corners and the smoke detector, then looked toward the window. “Nobody can hear through the glass.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know enough.”
Peter’s hand shook against the blanket. “Ray said you’d be stubborn.”
“Ray died seventeen years ago.”
“I know.”
“You could have found me.”
“I tried.”
Rocco’s face changed by less than an inch. “How?”
“Letters. Private investigator once. He took twelve hundred dollars and sent me a picture of the wrong man. Your name changed. Then it changed back. You disappeared every time I got close.”
“I was eleven when Ray took me.”
“I know.”
“Sixteen when he died.”
Peter closed his eyes.
Rocco moved nearer. “Did you know where I was?”
“Not after Pennsylvania.”
Rocco’s fingers curled around the wheel rim. “You knew Pennsylvania.”
“Ray wrote once.”
“He was forbidden to contact anyone.”
“He found a way.”
“Where is the letter?”
“In the envelope.”
Mara held it out.
Rocco did not take it.
May you like
“Open it,” he said to her.
The flap had been sealed with yellowed tape. Mara slid one finger beneath the edge and carefully lifted it. Inside were a black-and-white photograph, two folded sheets of paper, a brass key, and a microcassette inside a cloudy plastic case.
