Chương 8
She stepped over Brutus carefully and reached for her bag.
Adrian watched.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling the agency.”
“To tell them what?”
“That I’m leaving.”
His expression went still.
Clara pulled out her phone.
The screen showed four missed calls.
All from the same unfamiliar number.
Her thumb stopped.
Adrian saw her face.
“What?”
She turned the screen toward him.
“I don’t know.”
Nolan was beside her before Adrian moved.
“Don’t call it back.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Any messages?”
“One voicemail.”
“Play it on speaker.”
Clara looked at him.
“No.”
“Miss Doyle—”
“It’s my phone.”
Nolan stopped.
Adrian said nothing.
Clara hated that silence too.
Everyone in this house seemed trained to wait until other people surrendered.
She opened the voicemail and held the phone to her ear.
There was static first.
Then breathing.
Then a man’s voice.
“Clara Doyle?”
Her stomach tightened.
The voice continued.
“You don’t belong there.”
The recording ended.
She lowered the phone.
Adrian was watching her.
“What did he say?”
Clara did not answer immediately.
She replayed the message once more.
Same voice.
Same five words.
She handed the phone to Nolan.
He listened.
His face hardened.
Adrian held out his hand.
Nolan passed it over.
Adrian listened once.
When he returned the phone, he did so carefully, avoiding touching her fingers.
“When did that come in?”
“First call was one thirty-two.”
“That was before the photograph.”
“Or before you noticed the photograph.”
Nolan looked toward her.
“That’s possible.”
Clara swallowed.
“How did he get my number?”
“We’ll find out.”
Adrian’s voice had gone very calm.
She was beginning to understand that calm meant danger.
“To whom?”
He looked at her.
“The person who gave it to him.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
Brutus stood.
His head moved between Clara and Adrian.
Clara crouched and rested her hands on her knees.
The dog approached.
This time, after a moment’s hesitation, she touched the side of his neck.
His skin twitched beneath her fingers.
She stopped.
He leaned back into her hand.
The trust of it nearly undid her.
She stroked once, slowly, below the ear where there was no scar.
Brutus exhaled.
Behind her, nobody spoke.
Clara kept her eyes on the dog.
“I have a landlady who barely remembers my first name.”
Another slow stroke.
“The agency has my number.”
She paused.
“My old school.”
Another pause.
“The hospital.”
Adrian’s gaze sharpened.
“What hospital?”
Clara’s hand stopped.
She wished she had kept talking about the dog.
“Does it matter?”
“If someone accessed your personal information, yes.”
“My mother was sick.”
Adrian said nothing.
“She died last year.”
Nolan looked away.
Clara rubbed Brutus’s ear because it gave her fingers something to do.
“The bills are mine now.”
Adrian’s voice lowered.
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded.
She did not want sympathy from him.
Sympathy had a way of making people generous for thirty seconds and uncomfortable afterward.
“What about social media?” Nolan asked.
“I barely use it.”
“Public profiles?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Family?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Adrian noticed.
“None?”
Clara stood.
“I said no.”
He watched her for a beat, then let it go.
Nolan did not.
“Anyone who might have posted your number?”
“No.”
“Ex-boyfriend?”
Clara’s face changed.
“Absolutely not.”
Nolan waited.
She sighed.
“There was someone.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“How long ago?”
“Two years.”
“Name?”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Name.”
She turned toward him.
“You are not interrogating me.”
“No.”
“That sounded exactly like an interrogation.”
“It was one question.”
“It was the tone.”
Nolan rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Could everyone perhaps stop trying to win for thirty seconds?”
Clara looked at him.
Adrian looked at him.
Nolan sighed.
“Apparently not.”
Clara picked up her bag again.
“His name is Daniel Kerr.”
Nolan typed it into his phone.
“Where does he live?”
“Connecticut now, I think.”
“Occupation?”
“Dental equipment sales.”
Adrian looked at her.
“What?”
She snapped.
“Nothing.”
“You have a face.”
“I have several.”
“That one.”
“What one?”
“The face that says you think dental equipment sales explains something.”
Nolan turned away again.
Adrian’s mouth moved.
Clara pointed at him.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I wasn’t.”
Brutus pushed his head against Clara’s thigh.
She looked down.
“This whole house is irritating.”
The dog’s tail wagged.
“Especially you.”
The absurdity cracked something in the room.
For a few seconds, the fear loosened.
Then Nolan’s phone rang.
He answered without greeting.
His expression changed as he listened.
“Where?”
Adrian stood.
Nolan’s eyes met his.
“Davis lost the rental.”
“How?”
“Traffic light near the bridge.”
“Cameras?”
“Checking.”
Nolan listened again.
Then he became completely still.
“What?”
Adrian asked.
Nolan lowered the phone.
“They found the car.”
“Where?”
“Abandoned behind a grocery store.”
Clara felt the back of her neck prickle.
“And Morrow?”
“Gone.”
Adrian’s gaze moved to the windows.
“Lock the outer gates.”
Clara’s head snapped up.
“No.”
Adrian looked at her.
“You can’t lock me in.”
“I can lock strangers out.”
“Same gate.”
“Different reason.”
“Same result.”
Nolan stepped between their lines of sight without quite stepping between them.
“No one is holding you here.”
Adrian looked at him.
Nolan continued.
“But leaving right now would be a poor decision.”
Clara laughed once, without humor.
“Finally, somebody in this house knows how to phrase things.”
Adrian ignored that.
“If you insist on leaving, I won’t stop you.”
The admission surprised her.
His eyes remained on hers.
“But you will take a car.”
She almost argued out of instinct.
Then her phone vibrated in her hand.
A text message had arrived from the unknown number.
There were no words.
Only a photograph.
Clara standing at the east gate that morning.
Her cheap coat buttoned wrong.
Her canvas bag over one shoulder.
The timestamp in the corner read 6:51 a.m.
Her mouth went dry.
She had arrived before seven.
The car at the roadside had not been noticed until hours later.
“They were waiting for me.”
May you like
Nolan took the phone.
Adrian moved beside him.
