Chương 2
She nodded proudly.
“Lots.”
My stomach dropped.
Adrien glanced at Renzo.
“Show me.”
I stepped forward.
“Wait.”
Both men looked at me.
I surprised myself by continuing.
“That’s my phone.”
Adrien’s expression tightened slightly.
“Yes.”
“And my daughter.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then maybe you can explain why you’re acting like she just walked into a crime scene.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
Renzo looked at me like I had just stepped in front of a moving car.
Adrien said nothing.
For a few seconds, I thought I had made the worst mistake of my life.
Then he picked up the phone again.
“You should be more careful with who you challenge.”
I held his gaze.
“You should be more careful with how scared you look.”
Something changed in his eyes.
Not anger.
Recognition.
Like I had accidentally said something nobody else dared to say.
Mia tugged my sleeve.
“Mommy.”
I looked down.
“Cookie?”
The normal request almost broke the tension.
Almost.
Adrien looked at her.
Then away.
“Renzo.”
“Yes?”
“Find out everyone who entered this house today.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone.”
Renzo nodded.
“And her?”
Adrien looked at me.
My chest tightened.
“I don’t know her yet.”
The answer bothered me more than if he had accused me.
Because it meant he was considering possibilities.
Including one where I was involved.
I gathered Mia into my arms.
“I’m leaving.”
Adrien’s head turned.
“No.”
The word was calm.
Too calm.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re not leaving.”
A cold feeling moved through my stomach.
“I have a daughter.”
“I know.”
“Then you know I’m not staying somewhere that feels like a trap.”
His jaw tightened.
For the first time, I saw a crack in the control.
Not fear for himself.
Fear for something else.
“That photograph was taken inside this house.”
I said nothing.
“There is a reason I need to know how.”
“And if I don’t want to help?”
His eyes moved to Mia.
Then back to me.
“Then someone else may decide the answer for us.”
The room went quiet.
Outside, somewhere beyond the glass, a lawn mower moved across the neighboring property.
A completely ordinary sound.
It felt strange that the world continued like nothing had happened.
Adrien picked up my phone again.
The photograph filled the screen.
I saw his face change one more time.
This time I caught it.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Loss.
“What is it?” I asked.
He looked at the image of my smiling daughter beside him.
Then he looked at me.
“Your daughter just photographed someone who should have been dead for fifteen years.”
For several seconds, I could only hear the quiet hum of the air conditioning and Mia’s small fingers tapping against my shoulder.
“Dead?” I repeated.
Adrien did not answer immediately.
He looked at Renzo instead.
“Get the archive.”
Renzo’s expression hardened.
“Adrien.”
“Now.”
Something passed between them that I could not understand.
It was the kind of silent conversation people had when they had spent years learning each other’s warnings.
Renzo left the room without another word.
I watched the door close behind him.
“What archive?”
Adrien placed my phone on the desk.
“The one I never expected to open again.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
His honesty surprised me.
“I suppose it isn’t.”
I adjusted Mia on my hip.
She was starting to get heavy, the way toddlers became heavy when they had decided they were finished walking but still refused to admit they were tired.
“Mr. Voss.”
“Adrien.”
I looked at him.
“I didn’t say you could call me that.”
His mouth moved slightly.
Not a smile.
Something close to one.
“You just did.”
I hated that he noticed.
I hated more that for a brief second, the tension loosened.
Then the photograph on the desk pulled everything back into place.
“Who is in that picture?”
Adrien walked to the desk but did not touch the phone.
“A man named Elias Vale.”
The name meant nothing to me.
It clearly meant something to him.
“What happened to him?”
“He disappeared.”
“You said he was dead.”
“I said he should have been dead.”
“That sounds like a very specific difference.”
Adrien looked toward the windows covered by heavy curtains.
“When people disappear in my world, there are usually only two explanations.”
I waited.
“They leave.”
“And the other?”
“They are made to leave.”
The way he said it made my hands tighten around Mia.
I had cleaned his house for almost a year.
I had watched expensive cars arrive late at night.
I had heard conversations stop when I entered rooms.
I had told myself not to build stories around things I did not understand.
Now I wondered if pretending not to see danger had only made me safer until the day danger noticed me.
“Mia didn’t know what she took a picture of.”
“I know.”
“She was just playing.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you looking at her like she opened a locked door?”
Adrien’s eyes dropped.
Not to the phone.
To my daughter.
“She did.”
Before I could respond, the door opened.
Renzo returned carrying a thin black folder.
It looked old.
Not physically damaged.
Just handled enough times that it had become part of someone’s history.
He placed it on the desk.
Adrien did not open it immediately.
That hesitation told me more than anything else had.
This mattered.
“You kept it,” Renzo said quietly.
“I kept everything.”
“That was the problem.”
Adrien glanced at him.
“Careful.”
Renzo looked away.
For the first time, I saw that their relationship was not simply employee and employer.
There was loyalty there.
But there was also resentment.
The kind that came from surviving the same disaster and remembering it differently.
Adrien opened the folder.
Inside were photographs.
Documents.
Newspaper clippings.
A handwritten page covered in notes.
I did not move closer.
I told myself it was because I respected privacy.
The truth was simpler.
I was afraid of what I might see.
May you like
Adrien removed one photograph.
He placed it beside the image on my phone.
