Chương 2
“What if Hannah called?”
“We’ll find out.”
Every answer was reasonable. None was fast enough.
He followed Ruiz downstairs while technicians photographed the room. On the kitchen counter, Claire’s coffee cup from that morning still held a pale ring of cold liquid. She had left in an ambulance before seven after collapsing during a prayer breakfast at church. Pastor Daniel had called Ethan from the hospital and told him not to worry. Dehydration, he said. Exhaustion. Your mother carries too much.
Ethan had believed him because Pastor Daniel’s voice made belief feel like good manners.
Ruiz sat across from Ethan at the kitchen table. “Tell me exactly what your mother said the last time she discussed Hannah.”
“Yesterday?”
“Any time.”
“She said Hannah knew how to reach us.”
“Exact words?”
Ethan closed his eyes. Claire had been standing at the sink, scraping dried egg from a plate. The television was on in the next room. A reporter was talking about a flood in another state.
“She said, ‘Your sister knows where home is.’ Then she said she couldn’t keep being punished for Hannah’s choices.”
Ruiz wrote it down.
Ethan watched her pen. “You believed her.”
“We investigated what she told us.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
Ruiz capped the pen. “At the beginning, the evidence supported the possibility that Hannah left voluntarily. We also kept other possibilities open.”
“You searched the river.”
“Yes.”
“You searched abandoned buildings.”
“Yes.”
“You put her picture everywhere.”
“Yes.”
“And her phone was beside my mother’s bed.”
Ruiz let the silence remain.
Ethan rubbed his palms against his jeans. “I need to talk to her.”
“You can, but not alone.”
“She’s my mother.”
“She may also be involved in concealing evidence connected to a missing child.”
The phrase missing child landed harder than missing sister. It stripped away all the explanations Claire had repeated. Hannah was not a difficult girl teaching them a lesson. She was seventeen now, but she had been sixteen when she disappeared. She had needed the adults around her to be better than their fear.
Ethan stood. “Take me to the hospital.”
Ruiz drove because Ethan’s hands would not stop trembling.
St. Andrew’s was twelve minutes away, though it felt longer. Ruiz did not use the siren. Morning traffic collected at red lights. A delivery truck blocked one lane near the pharmacy. Two students crossed against the signal, laughing over something on a phone. The world had continued during every day Hannah was gone, and Ethan had never forgiven it.
He kept seeing the hollowed pages.
Claire had read from that Bible after his father left. Psalm 34 when the electric bill went unpaid. Matthew 6 when the landlord raised the rent. The story of the prodigal son when Hannah skipped youth group and went to a concert without permission. Claire had rested her palm on the cover as if steadiness lived beneath it.
All that time there had been space inside for a secret.
At the hospital, a uniformed officer stood outside Claire’s room. Through the glass, Ethan saw his mother sitting upright beneath cold neutral light. A beige hospital gown showed beneath her cream cardigan. Her shoulder-length dark-brown hair was flattened on one side, gray strands more visible than usual. Adhesive leads disappeared beneath the gown. The monitor beside her made soft, regular sounds.
Pastor Daniel stood at the foot of the bed.
He wore his charcoal coat and white clerical collar. His graying hair was combed neatly, even though he had supposedly spent the morning worrying beside Claire. One hand rested on the bed rail. He was saying something Ethan could not hear.
Ruiz opened the door.
Daniel turned first. His expression shifted into concern with such familiar precision that Ethan nearly hated himself for noticing.
“Ethan,” Daniel said. “Your mother has been asking for you.”
Claire looked past him. “Did you bring my things?”
Ethan entered with empty hands.
Her gaze dropped to them.
That small movement told him more than a scream would have.
He stopped beside the bed. Ruiz remained near the door. The officer stepped in behind her.
“The police have your Bible,” Ethan said.
Claire stopped breathing for one beat.
The monitor quickened.
Daniel’s fingers tightened on the rail. “What does that mean?”
Ethan did not look at him. “Mom?”
Claire stared at Ethan’s hands again, as if the absence of the overnight bag had become dangerous.
“Where is it?” she asked.
“At the house.”
“Why were they there?”
The questions came too quickly. She had not asked what the police wanted with a Bible.
Ethan’s jaw ached from clenching it. “Why did you have Hannah’s phone?”
Claire’s face changed slowly. Fear gathered around her eyes, but she did not cry. She looked toward Ruiz, then toward the officer, then back to Ethan.
Daniel released the rail. “Claire is under medication. This isn’t an appropriate time for an interrogation.”
Ruiz said, “No one asked you a question, Pastor.”
“I’m responsible for her spiritual care.”
“You can provide it from the corridor.”
Claire’s head turned. “No.”
Daniel met her eyes.
Something passed between them. It was not affection. It looked more like a warning that had been practiced until neither person needed words.
Ethan moved closer to the bed. “Why was Hannah’s phone inside your Bible?”
Claire swallowed.
“Ethan,” she said, “I need you to understand that your sister was frightened.”
“So you hid her phone?”
“Hannah didn’t disappear.”
The monitor accelerated again.
Ethan felt the room narrow around her words. “Where is she?”
Claire’s lips parted. Nothing came out. She took one trembling breath, then another.
“I helped her leave.”
Ethan’s knees weakened, but he stayed upright by gripping the bed rail.
Ruiz stepped forward. “Claire, where did she go?”
Claire looked toward the glass hospital door.
Pastor Daniel stood behind it, motionless, watching through the narrow window.
“But he never took her where he promised,” Claire said.
May you like
Ethan followed her gaze.
Daniel’s expression remained controlled. Only his eyes changed. They settled on Claire with a flatness Ethan had never seen from the pulpit, not even when the church’s roof fund fell short or when a man shouted during Easter service.
