Chương 3
The girl’s smile was unmistakably Claire’s.
Maya shut off the monitor.
This time Daniel let her.
“I’m going home,” he said.
Maya nodded.
At the studio entrance, she called his name.
He stopped.
“If you confront her, don’t tell her I gave you private information beyond what you actually saw.”
Daniel looked back.
“I won’t.”
“Thank you.”
“And Maya?”
“Yes?”
“Back up today’s gallery.”
She stiffened.
“Why?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That sounds like you’re asking me to preserve evidence.”
“Maybe I am.”
“I’m a photographer, Daniel.”
“I know.”
“You need a lawyer if that’s where your head is going.”
“It isn’t.”
That was true for approximately twenty minutes.
By the time Daniel reached his car, his head was going everywhere.
He sat behind the wheel without starting the engine.
The parking garage smelled faintly of oil and hot concrete. A minivan backed out three spaces away while a child argued with someone through an open window about a missing water bottle.
Daniel watched the minivan leave.
Then he called Claire.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“Hey.”
Her voice was normal.
Perfectly normal.
That nearly undid him.
“Hey,” Daniel said.
“You’re early. How were the pictures?”
He looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror.
His face seemed older than it had an hour ago.
“Canceled.”
“Why?”
“Studio problem.”
“What kind?”
He paused.
There it was.
The first lie.
Small.
Useful.
Awful.
“Lighting issue.”
“Oh. That’s annoying.”
“Yeah.”
A murmur of voices sounded behind her.
Daniel listened.
“Where are you?”
“At the hotel.”
“In Milwaukee?”
A pause.
So small he might have missed it any other day.
“Yes.”
“What hotel?”
“The Marquette.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
She had told him the name before. He had forgotten.
“Everything okay?” Claire asked.
“Fine.”
“You sound strange.”
“I’m sitting in a parking garage.”
“That does make you strange.”
Normally he would have smiled.
He almost did.
“Conference good?”
“I’ve been here five minutes.”
“The registration you texted about?”
Another pause.
“Sorry. I mean the actual sessions. My brain is fried.”
Daniel felt cold despite the warm car.
“You should get some coffee.”
“I’m way ahead of you.”
He could picture her rolling her eyes.
He hated that he could picture it.
“Call me tonight?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“I love you.”
Daniel stared through the windshield.
A man in a Cubs cap pushed a cart loaded with lighting cases across the far end of the garage.
“Daniel?”
“Love you too.”
The words came automatically.
He ended the call and immediately opened a search engine.
The Marquette Hotel Milwaukee.
No such hotel.
There was a Marquette Hotel in Minneapolis. A Marquette University. Several hotels near Marquette.
He searched the conference.
Nothing under the exact name.
He tried variations.
Nothing.
At eleven forty-eight, Daniel called a family-law attorney he had used years earlier to review part of his divorce settlement.
He disliked himself while doing it.
He disliked Claire more.
He disliked that those two feelings could exist at the same time.
The attorney, Nina Patel, answered through her assistant and agreed to speak at one thirty.
Daniel drove home first.
Their house stood on a quiet street in Evanston, a brick two-story place they had bought four years earlier after Claire fell in love with the built-in bookcases and Daniel pretended not to notice that the basement flooded after heavy rain.
He entered through the kitchen.
Claire’s mug sat upside down on a drying towel.
Her reading glasses were beside a bowl of lemons.
A cardigan hung over the back of a chair.
Nothing in the room looked like evidence.
That disturbed him.
He went upstairs.
Their bedroom smelled faintly of Claire’s perfume.
Her side of the closet had a gap where the dark-green dress had been.
Daniel opened drawers, then closed them.
He stood in the middle of the room.
What exactly was he doing?
Looking for birth certificates?
A second wedding ring?
A photograph labeled MY SECRET FAMILY?
He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed both hands over his face.
He had spent twenty-five years believing suspicious people found suspicious things because they looked carefully.
Now he understood the more humiliating possibility.
Sometimes suspicious people manufactured meaning from everything.
The extra phone charger in a drawer.
The locked document box.
The old storage bin Claire never opened.
He forced himself to stop.
At one twenty-five, he drove to Nina Patel’s office.
She had gray streaks at her temples now and the same habit of reading a person for two seconds before greeting them.
“Daniel.”
“Nina.”
They shook hands.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“You want coffee?”
“No.”
“Water?”
“No.”
She sat behind her desk.
Daniel remained standing until she pointed to the chair.
“Tell me.”
He did.
He kept it factual.
Photograph.
Teenagers.
Morning session.
False travel story.
Maiden name.
Other man identified as the children’s father.
Nina listened without interruption.
When he finished, she folded her hands.
“First thing. Being the biological mother of children you didn’t know about does not automatically create a legal issue for your marriage.”
“I know.”
“Second, if she is currently married to somebody else, that obviously does.”
“I know.”
“Third, don’t access accounts you don’t have legal authorization to access. Don’t guess passwords. Don’t install anything on her phone. Don’t track her. Don’t impersonate her.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“People who weren’t planning to do stupid things often do them after they leave my office.”
Daniel looked out the window.
“So what do I do?”
“Decide what you actually need to know before you decide what you’re willing to destroy.”
He looked back.
“That sounds like therapy.”
“It’s legal advice with better manners.”
“Nina.”
She sighed.
“You can search public records. Marriage and divorce records vary by jurisdiction and accessibility. You can ask your wife. You can hire a licensed investigator if you believe there’s a legitimate reason. What you should not do is turn your house into a crime scene because you’re angry.”
May you like
“I’m not angry.”
She gave him a flat look.
