Chương 2
He had been six hours away repairing storm-damaged pumping equipment for a contractor that paid him enough overtime to pretend the absences were temporary.
His phone had drowned three days earlier when he dropped it from a platform into a flooded service pit. He had bought a replacement that morning and driven home instead of returning to the motel because the repair crew had been released early.
He had expected Lily to complain that he had forgotten the sour gummy worms she liked.
He had expected Elena to be annoyed because he had not called.
He had expected normal problems.
He turned.
“Why didn’t you call the site office?”
Elena’s expression changed.
Not guilt.
Anger.
Quiet, exhausted anger.
“I did.”
Daniel stared at her.
“Twice.”
“Nobody told me.”
“I left messages.”
“With who?”
“I don’t know. A man named Chris the first time. A woman the second.”
Daniel rubbed his mouth.
Chris ran dispatch.
The woman could have been anyone.
“You should’ve kept calling.”
Elena laughed once.
It wasn’t amusement.
“I should have kept calling.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“No. Go ahead. Tell me what I should have done.”
Lily looked between them.
Daniel stopped.
Elena pressed her lips together.
Noah suddenly became extremely interested in reorganizing the cookies.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“We’re not doing this here.”
“No,” Elena said. “We’re not.”
That was worse.
A door opened somewhere beyond the storeroom.
All four of them froze.
Elena immediately checked the hallway.
A woman’s voice called from somewhere near the nurses’ station. Another voice answered. A cart rattled over tile.
Elena pulled the service door shut.
The wind disappeared.
The room became painfully bright.
Daniel looked around properly for the first time.
There was a folded blanket behind a stack of incontinence supplies. Lily’s backpack rested beside it. A plastic grocery bag contained toothbrushes, two apples, a bottle of children’s ibuprofen, and Elena’s hairbrush. A clinic towel had been laid beneath Lily’s sneakers so they would not dirty the floor.
It was not improvised anymore.
It was a home somebody had tried very hard not to make visible.
Daniel turned toward Elena.
“You’ve been working while she sleeps in here?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“You have a choice.”
“What choice?”
“Me.”
She looked at him.
He heard how stupid the word sounded.
Elena looked away first.
“You weren’t here.”
Daniel had no answer.
Noah cleared his throat.
“My mom gets off at eleven.”
Nobody responded.
He looked toward the door.
“I should probably go before she realizes I’m not in the break room.”
Elena took the cookie box from him.
“Thank you.”
Noah shrugged.
Then Lily caught his sleeve.
“You can take the rest.”
“I brought them for you.”
“There’s too many.”
“There are six.”
“That’s too many.”
Noah looked at Daniel as if adults were responsible for resolving cookie mathematics.
Daniel said, “Split them.”
Noah nodded, apparently satisfied.
He took three.
Lily took three.
Then Noah looked at Daniel.
“Your brother has a black truck.”
Daniel’s attention sharpened.
Elena said, “Noah.”
“He came here Sunday.”
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
“He didn’t come inside.”
Noah shook his head.
“He parked across the street.”
Elena’s face tightened.
“How do you know it was him?”
“I saw him when he came to your house before.”
Daniel looked at the boy.
“When?”
Noah glanced at Elena again.
“After school. Me and Lily were doing math.”
“You were at my house?”
“Sometimes.”
Elena touched Daniel’s arm.
“Later.”
Noah backed toward the hallway.
“My mom says people are scarier when they whisper than when they yell.”
He seemed to consider whether that statement required explanation.
Then he left.
Daniel waited until the door closed behind him.
“Michael watched you here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said he calls every night.”
“Yes.”
“And Noah says he parked outside.”
“Yes.”
“You should’ve told me that first.”
“I’ve had twelve minutes to tell you anything.”
Daniel stopped.
Elena picked up the fallen cookies one by one and dropped them into a trash bag.
He watched her bend over.
He had spent three weeks imagining he was the exhausted one.
He took the bag from her.
“I’ll do it.”
“I’m capable of picking up cookies.”
“I know.”
She let go anyway.
Lily sat on the folded blanket and opened one of the cookies Noah had given her.
Daniel looked at the foreclosure documents again.
The name of the company was North Ridge Property Holdings LLC.
The transfer price was listed as ten dollars and other valuable consideration.
The deed bore his signature and the date from three weeks earlier.
Daniel had been in Indiana that day.
He remembered because a hydraulic coupling had failed before dawn and sprayed him with hot fluid. He had a photograph from the urgent care clinic where they cleaned the burn on his forearm.
He looked at the signature.
Whoever had copied it had used his full middle name.
Daniel almost never signed his middle name.
Michael knew that.
Which meant Michael had not merely scribbled something that looked close.
He had copied it from somewhere.
Daniel felt the room tighten around him.
“Where did he get this?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he say when he came to the house?”
Elena leaned against the shelf.
Lily was watching them again.
Elena noticed.
“Not here.”
Daniel understood.
The father in him wanted the truth immediately.
The husband in him, the man who had been absent long enough for this to happen, finally recognized that Lily had been listening to adult fear for nine days.
He folded the documents.
“Pack your stuff.”
Elena’s face changed.
“Where are we going?”
“Anywhere that has a bed.”
“We can’t afford—”
“I got paid Friday.”
“The mortgage bounced.”
“What?”
“The regular mortgage. The account was short.”
Daniel stared at her.
“How?”
May you like
“Because I paid the electric bill and the car insurance, and because the debit card got declined at the grocery store, and because I bought gas to keep the car warm the first night.”
Daniel took out his wallet.
