Chương 7
Marcus's expression changed slightly.
Not enough to be obvious.
Enough.
Daniel noticed.
"Why did you make that face?"
"What face?"
"The one people make when they are trying to decide whether lying is easier."
Marcus placed the toolbox down.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Daniel felt the old anger arrive.
Fast.
Hot.
Convenient.
It was easier than fear.
"You removed the board."
"Yes."
"You saw what was underneath."
Marcus looked toward the window.
Outside, a child from the next house rode a bicycle too close to the sidewalk while his mother called him back.
"I saw an envelope."
Daniel stepped closer.
"And?"
"And I thought it was trash."
"An envelope hidden under a floorboard?"
Marcus rubbed his jaw.
"Look, I didn't open it."
"You saw my name?"
"No."
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
The contractor looked uncomfortable.
Because the answer was not simple.
"Because I didn't think it was my business."
Daniel stared at him.
"Something connected to my sister disappearing wasn't your business?"
Marcus flinched.
Not from guilt.
From the accusation.
"I didn't know that."
"You knew her name."
"No."
The answer came quickly.
Too quickly.
Daniel noticed.
Marcus noticed him noticing.
The room became smaller.
"How do you know I knew her name?" Marcus asked.
Daniel froze.
Neither man moved.
A second passed.
Then another.
Marcus looked toward the floor.
Daniel felt something shift.
Not an answer.
A crack.
"You said you saw an envelope," Daniel said quietly.
Marcus said nothing.
"You didn't say you knew who it belonged to."
The contractor picked up his toolbox again.
"I should go."
Daniel stepped in front of the door.
"No."
Marcus's face hardened.
"Move."
The word carried no threat.
Only exhaustion.
Daniel moved anyway.
Because he saw something he had missed.
Marcus was not afraid of him.
He was afraid of the conversation.
"How long have you known?" Daniel asked.
Marcus looked at the kitchen.
"Eleven years."
The number landed harder than Daniel expected.
"What?"
"I didn't know everything."
"Then tell me what you knew."
Marcus looked older suddenly.
Not because his face changed.
Because whatever he had been carrying had finally become visible.
"I worked on this house before."
Daniel frowned.
"No, you didn't."
"Yes."
"You weren't the contractor."
"No."
The silence stretched.
"I was helping my uncle."
Daniel searched his memory.
The name did not appear.
The face did not appear.
But that did not mean anything.
Eleven years had buried a lot.
"Why didn't you say anything?"
Marcus looked down.
"Because your father asked me not to."
The sentence felt impossible.
"My father?"
"Yes."
Daniel stepped back.
His father had been dead for six years.
A heart attack in the middle of a grocery store.
A stranger calling an ambulance.
A funeral attended by people who spoke about him like they knew him better than Daniel did.
His father had taken secrets with him.
Daniel had always assumed they were the usual ones.
Regrets.
Money problems.
Things men from that generation rarely admitted.
Not this.
"What did he know?"
Marcus shook his head.
"I don't know."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
Daniel laughed quietly.
The sound had no humor.
"Everyone keeps saying that."
Marcus looked at him.
"Your father found something."
"What?"
"I don't know."
"You just said he asked you not to talk."
"He did."
"About what?"
Marcus tightened his grip on the toolbox handle.
"About Claire."
The room went silent.
Daniel wanted to push harder.
He wanted to demand every detail.
He wanted to grab the past and force it to explain itself.
Instead, he noticed the clock above the kitchen doorway.
The battery was dying.
The second hand moved.
Then stopped.
Then jumped forward.
A small broken thing trying to pretend it still worked.
"Why now?" Daniel asked.
Marcus looked confused.
"What?"
"Why did you come back to this house now?"
"I didn't."
"You did."
"No."
Daniel stared at him.
"You were assigned this job."
Marcus looked away.
"Yeah."
"By who?"
The pause was short.
But it existed.
Daniel felt his stomach tighten.
"Marcus."
The contractor closed his eyes briefly.
"The company owner."
"Name?"
Marcus did not answer.
Daniel stepped closer.
"Name."
"Thomas Reed."
The name meant nothing.
Then it did.
Not because Daniel recognized it.
Because Marcus looked afraid after saying it.
And fear was sometimes a better clue than a name.
Daniel did not move.
The name sat between them like something placed carefully on a table.
"Thomas Reed," he repeated.
Marcus nodded once.
"You know him?"
"No."
The answer came too quickly, and Marcus looked annoyed with himself afterward.
Daniel noticed.
"You keep doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Answering before you decide if you should."
Marcus looked toward the garage.
"Some people talk too much when they're nervous."
"And some people talk too little."
"Yeah."
The contractor picked up his toolbox again.
"That's me."
Daniel almost let him leave.
That surprised him.
A few months earlier, he would have grabbed onto the conversation with both hands.
He would have pushed.
He would have demanded every piece of information until the other person broke.
But something had changed since finding the letter.
Maybe it was because every answer had created three more questions.
Maybe it was because he was starting to understand that people did not hide things because they were simple.
They hid things because they were complicated.
"Sit down," Daniel said.
Marcus looked at him.
"What?"
"Five minutes."
"I have work."
"You've already decided not to tell me for eleven years."
Marcus's mouth tightened.
"That doesn't mean I owe you the other eleven minutes."
The response irritated Daniel because it was reasonable.
He hated reasonable arguments.
They left less room for anger.
Marcus eventually sat at the kitchen table.
Not comfortably.
Like someone waiting in a place where he did not belong.
Daniel stayed standing.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
The refrigerator hummed.
A car door slammed somewhere outside.
A dog barked twice and then stopped.
May you like
Normal sounds.
The kind of sounds Daniel had ignored for years because he had been too busy waiting for something else to break.
