Part 9
Nora said, “That was in Madison.”
Clara found another clipping from the tenth anniversary of Julia’s disappearance. The article quoted her.
I will never stop looking for my sister.
Julia had circled the sentence in red.
Beside it, she wrote, Then why does no one give her my number?
Clara lowered the clipping to the table.
“I did look,” she said.
Nora did not accuse her. That was worse.
“We hired investigators. I called hospitals. I went on television.”
“I know.”
“He told me the tips were false.”
“Some probably were.”
“All the ones about Wisconsin?”
Nora shrugged. “Mom moved.”
“Because investigators came?”
“Sometimes.”
Elena said, “Anna believed your father’s people were searching for her, not you.”
“My father was dead for the last eleven years.”
“Fear does not update itself like software,” Elena replied.
Clara touched the edge of the clipping. “Did she hate me?”
Nora’s answer came quickly. “No.”
“Was she angry?”
“Yes.”
Both truths occupied the table.
Clara nodded.
They continued sorting.
Near the bottom of the portfolio, they found a flash drive taped inside a hidden pocket. Nora recognized it.
“Mom kept that in the blue jar.”
Elena stopped typing. “Then Martin took more than the files.”
Clara held the drive between two fingers.
“What’s on it?”
“Recordings,” Nora said.
“Of what?”
“Grandpa.”
Clara stared at her.
Nora’s face tightened. “Your dad. Not mine.”
“How do you know?”
“Mom played one.”
Elena looked sharply at her. “When?”
“Before the hospital. She wanted me to understand why she was scared of him even though he was dead.”
“What did he say?”
Nora looked at Clara. “Bad things.”
Clara placed the drive on the table.
“We need a lawyer before opening it.”
Elena studied her, perhaps surprised by the restraint.
“We also need copies,” Clara added. “And somewhere secure.”
Nora asked, “Not your company?”
“Not my company.”
She turned on her phone and called an attorney named Priya Shah, whom she knew from a nonprofit board. Priya did not represent Mercer North, had once sued one of its suppliers, and disliked Martin openly.
Clara gave only the essential facts.
Priya was silent for several seconds.
“Do not plug the drive into any device connected to your company,” she said. “Do not email documents. Photograph nothing on a corporate phone. Put everything in a room you can lock. I’ll come to you.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“I know what day it is.”
“You’re in Evanston.”
“I know where I live, Clara.”
“I’m not at home.”
“Send the address from a personal phone.”
Clara glanced at her company-issued device.
“I don’t have one.”
Priya sighed. “Of course you don’t. Use your host’s phone. I’ll bring one.”
She arrived ninety minutes later carrying a laptop in a sealed case, two encrypted drives, legal pads, and a bag of pastries. She wore jeans and a navy blazer and greeted Clara with no embrace.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“This is Elena Reyes. This is Nora Hart.”
Priya crouched slightly rather than kneeling. “Hello, Nora. I’m a lawyer. That means I will say annoying things about what we should not touch.”
Nora pointed toward the table. “We touched everything.”
“Then my timing is excellent.”
Priya listened without interrupting except to clarify dates. She asked Nora whether Martin had ever threatened her. Nora said no. Whether he had tried to take her anywhere. No. Whether her mother had feared him. Sometimes. Whether Julia feared Clara.
Nora thought before answering.
“She feared what Clara would choose.”
Clara felt the sentence settle into her.
Priya did not look at her. “What did she think Clara might choose?”
“The company.”
No one moved.
Elena’s refrigerator motor clicked off. The apartment became unusually quiet.
Clara asked, “Did she say that to you?”
“She said everybody chooses what they already know.”
Priya wrote the words down.
They made digital copies of every document. Priya opened the flash drive on an isolated laptop after photographing its condition and recording who was present. It contained twelve audio files, five scanned ledgers, and a video recorded by Julia in the hospital.
Clara asked to hear the audio first.
The earliest recording dated from 1993.
Henry Mercer’s voice filled the small apartment.
It was younger than Clara remembered, but unmistakable: patient, amused, dangerous because it rarely needed volume.
You have nowhere to go, Julia. Martin can play social worker for a week, perhaps two. Then he will remember he has a career.
A younger Martin answered, She has copies.
Of incomplete books she stole.
She understands what you did.
She understands drama. She is seventeen.
Julia’s voice came from farther away.
Tell him about Mrs. Alvarez.
A pause.
Henry said, Your sister will be home from camp Friday. Is this how you want her to return? Police at the gate? Her mother sedated? Your picture in the paper beside the word unstable?
Clara shut her eyes.
On the recording, Julia said, Don’t touch her.
Then cooperate.
The file ended.
No one in Elena’s apartment spoke for a long time.
Nora broke a pastry in half but did not eat it.
The second recording captured the bargain. Martin insisted Julia remain in contact with him. Henry insisted she never contact Clara directly. Julia demanded money for the employees whose accounts had been emptied. Henry laughed at her. Martin suggested a settlement vehicle that would disguise the restoration as a benefits correction.
It was the voice of a young attorney solving a problem.
Clara heard no outrage. Only negotiation.
The later recordings changed. Henry became less certain. Martin became colder. Julia became harder.
On one file, recorded five years after her departure, Julia asked when she could see Clara.
Martin said, Not yet.
You said when she turned eighteen.
She is in college and struggling.
Then she needs me.
She believes you left voluntarily.
Whose fault is that?
Martin did not answer.
May you like
Julia continued, Every year you ask me to wait because telling her would be disruptive. You built her whole life around the disruption.
The recording ended with the scrape of a chair.
