Chương 6
Claire stared at their mother.
“And you let them get married.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was a coward.”
No explanation followed.
No defense.
Daniel hated her less for that, which made him angrier.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered immediately.
“Hello?”
A woman breathed on the other end.
“Elena?”
“It’s me.”
He stood.
Claire and Judith both watched him.
“Where are you?”
“I’m safe.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you yet.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Are you Anna?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
Claire turned away.
Daniel pressed the phone against his ear.
“Did you marry me to get close to my father?”
A longer silence.
“At first, I stayed close to you because of him.”
He swallowed.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Her voice shook.
“I did not marry you because of him.”
“Did marrying me help you investigate him?”
“Yes.”
Daniel’s hand tightened.
Elena continued quickly.
“I know how that sounds.”
“You have absolutely no idea how it sounds.”
“I probably do.”
“Did you ever plan to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I kept changing the answer.”
“Before we had children? After? On our twentieth anniversary?”
“Daniel—”
“Do you love me?”
She stopped.
He hated himself the moment he asked.
Not because the question was weak.
Because he wanted the answer too much.
“Yes.”
He sat again.
“I don’t know what that means from you anymore.”
“I know.”
“No, you keep saying that. Stop.”
She became quiet.
Daniel stared at the locket on the table.
“Whose blood is on the note?”
“My brother’s.”
Claire covered her mouth.
“How?”
“He wrote it the night he died.”
Daniel looked at his sister.
Claire shook her head as though she could reject the words physically.
Elena said, “Michael called me from a gas station. He’d been hurt.”
“Hurt how?”
“He said someone hit him in the parking lot outside a storage facility. He had a cut above his eye. He’d been carrying copies of records. He wrote something down because he thought his phone was compromised.”
“What did he write?”
Elena hesitated.
“Elena.”
“My real name. A locker number. And three initials.”
“Whose?”
“R.V.”
Daniel’s stomach dropped.
Claire whispered, “Dad.”
Elena heard her.
“Claire is there?”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
“I’m sorry.”
Claire stood and took the phone from Daniel.
“Don’t.”
Elena’s breathing trembled.
Claire said, “Do not apologize to me unless you’re going to tell the truth.”
“I will.”
“Did Michael think my father was going to kill him?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“He told me Richard had to be stopped. He said if anything happened, I should take the note and go to the locker.”
“What was in it?”
“Documents.”
“Where are they?”
“Gone.”
“What?”
“When I got there the next day, the locker had been emptied.”
“By who?”
“I never found out.”
Claire gripped the phone.
“And you spent ten years trying?”
“Yes.”
“Using my brother?”
“No.”
“Using my family?”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at the floor.
Elena did not soften it.
Claire’s eyes filled, but she did not cry.
“At least you can say it.”
“I should have stayed away.”
“Yes.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t get to agree with everything like that fixes it.”
“I’m not trying to fix it.”
Claire breathed through her nose.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you yet.”
“Why?”
“Because Richard doesn’t know what I took.”
Daniel stood.
“What did you take?”
Claire put the call on speaker.
Elena said, “The note.”
“We know that.”
“And something from his pocket.”
Daniel and Claire looked at each other.
“What?”
“A storage key.”
Richard had carried the same small brass key on his watch chain for years.
Daniel remembered seeing it when his father reached for the locket.
“He still had it tonight?”
“Yes.”
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
Judith said quietly, “I might.”
All three heard her.
Elena went silent.
Judith moved closer to the phone.
“Anna.”
“Hello, Judith.”
Daniel watched his mother flinch at the distance in Elena’s voice.
Judith said, “Richard keeps an archive room at the old Vale warehouse in Red Hook.”
Claire stared.
“The warehouse Dad supposedly sold?”
“He transferred ownership to an LLC.”
Daniel rubbed his face.
“Of course he did.”
Judith continued. “There’s a secondary records vault. Brass key, narrow bow, probably nineteen-eighties Yale lock.”
Daniel looked at her.
“How do you know this?”
“I spent thirty-five years married to him. I did occasionally notice things.”
Claire whispered, “This is the strangest night of my life.”
Elena said, “I’m going there.”
Daniel answered immediately.
“No.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“I’m not trying to be your husband right now.”
The sentence hurt him after he said it.
He continued anyway.
“I’m telling you not to walk alone into one of my father’s buildings with stolen property.”
“It isn’t stolen if it belongs to—”
“It’s his key.”
She stopped.
He could hear traffic near her.
“You’re outside,” he said.
No answer.
“Anna.”
She inhaled sharply when he used the name.
“Where are you?”
“Near Atlantic Avenue.”
“Stay there.”
“No.”
“Then tell me where you’re going and I’ll meet you.”
“Daniel, you should stay out of this.”
He almost laughed.
“My wife has a dead man’s bloody note around her neck, my father may have buried evidence, my mother has apparently been running a private witness-protection program out of Brooklyn, and my sister just learned you are the sister of her dead fiancé. I’m already in it.”
Claire muttered, “That was almost impressive.”
Elena was quiet for several seconds.
Then she gave him an address.
An all-night diner.
The diner smelled of burnt coffee and fryer oil.
Elena sat in a rear booth wearing Richard’s overcoat over her green gown.
Daniel stopped when he saw the coat.
She followed his eyes.
“I took it from the coatroom.”
Claire slid into the booth opposite her.
“You stole his coat too?”
“I was cold.”
Claire stared at her.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
Elena did not.
Claire’s laugh died.
“Sorry.”
May you like
Daniel remained standing.
Elena looked up at him.
