Chương 5
“Send me this.”
Sophie did.
Emma opened Daniel’s contact.
She typed, Where are you?
Deleted it.
Typed, Is Elena alive?
Deleted that too.
Finally she wrote nothing.
For the first time in four years, Emma did not ask Daniel to explain himself.
She began looking for what he had left behind.
By early afternoon the clinic transferred Emma to a hospital.
Claire wanted the transfer described as precautionary postoperative monitoring. Emma insisted the receiving physician document that she disputed consent for the procedures performed.
The emergency physician, Dr. Patel, did not promise conclusions.
He examined her carefully, ordered imaging, reviewed the available operative information, and told her what he could establish.
There had been extensive work to her lower face.
Some changes would diminish as swelling resolved.
Some would not.
Revision might eventually be possible.
Eventually.
Not tomorrow.
Not next week.
Healing would have to happen first.
Emma listened without interrupting.
“How long?”
“Before anyone responsible should talk seriously about revision? Months.”
She looked at the ceiling.
“Months.”
“Yes.”
“Will I look like her?”
Dr. Patel paused.
“I can’t answer that from a photograph.”
“Claire said they used her as a reference.”
“That still doesn’t let me predict your final appearance.”
Emma appreciated the refusal more than reassurance.
“Can you fix it?”
“I’m not a facial plastic surgeon.”
“Can somebody?”
“Probably some aspects. But anyone who promises to restore you exactly to how you looked yesterday is promising something they can’t guarantee.”
Carol began crying quietly.
Emma reached for her mother’s hand.
The reversal was strange.
Her mother had come to comfort her.
Now Emma was comforting her mother because there was nothing else to do with her hands.
That evening Ortiz called.
Elena’s car had been found at the clinic’s parking garage.
Emma sat upright despite the pain.
“Was she in it?”
“No.”
“Blood?”
“I can’t discuss investigative details.”
“Is Daniel a suspect?”
“I can’t characterize that yet.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“We’re trying to locate him.”
Emma looked toward the hospital window.
Traffic moved below in red and white lines.
People were going home.
Ordering dinner.
Arguing over lanes.
Living Tuesday.
“Officer?”
“Yes?”
“My fiancé has access to my house.”
“We know.”
“He has my passwords.”
“Change what you can.”
“My laptop is there.”
“We can arrange for you or a family member to retrieve essentials with an officer if needed.”
Emma swallowed.
“There’s a safe in the office.”
“Who knows the combination?”
“Both of us.”
“What’s in it?”
“Passports. Some cash. My grandmother’s jewelry. Property documents.”
“Anything belonging to Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Emma almost said she did not know.
Then she remembered the envelope.
Daniel kept a sealed brown envelope beneath the passports. She had once asked about it.
Old tax stuff, he had said.
She had believed him because marriage, apparently, was built partly from the questions you chose not to ask.
“There’s an envelope.”
Ortiz was silent for a moment.
“Don’t go looking for it yourself.”
The envelope was gone.
Emma learned that the next morning.
Sophie went to the house with Officer Keller while Emma remained hospitalized.
The safe had been opened.
Nothing belonging to Emma appeared missing.
Her grandmother’s bracelet was still there.
Cash untouched.
Passports untouched.
Daniel’s envelope was gone.
So was his passport.
His laptop remained on his desk.
That initially seemed important.
Then a forensic technician determined the laptop had been remotely wiped.
Emma sat with the information while eating applesauce through a small spoon.
The indignity of the applesauce bothered her.
Not because it tasted bad.
Because catastrophic betrayal should not coexist with cinnamon applesauce in a plastic cup.
Yet there it was.
Sophie sat beside the window scrolling through Daniel’s financial records on Emma’s tablet.
They shared one joint account for household expenses but kept most finances separate.
“Did you know he withdrew forty thousand dollars last month?”
Emma stopped eating.
“What?”
“Not from the joint account. From his brokerage.”
“How do you know?”
“His tax folder synced to your cloud drive.”
Emma stared.
Daniel had always been meticulous about taxes.
Apparently betrayal had administrative weaknesses.
“Where did it go?”
“I don’t know.”
Sophie looked uncomfortable.
“What?”
“There are payments to Morgan Aesthetic.”
Emma put down the spoon.
“How much?”
“Twenty-five thousand.”
“My surgery was twelve.”
“I know.”
“When?”
“Three payments. Last six weeks.”
Emma felt the room shift in a way that had nothing to do with medication.
“Send it to Ortiz.”
“I already did.”
Emma looked at her sister.
Sophie shrugged.
“You were busy with applesauce.”
For the first time since waking, Emma smiled without immediately wanting to cry.
The police found Daniel that afternoon.
He was not fleeing the country.
He was sitting in a motel eleven miles from their house.
Alone.
Alive.
He had not harmed Elena.
At least, police had no evidence that he had.
Elena remained missing.
Daniel asked for a lawyer and refused to speak.
Emma learned this from Ortiz, then learned from Daniel himself twenty minutes later when he called.
She stared at his name on the screen until it nearly stopped ringing.
Sophie said, “You don’t have to answer.”
Emma did.
“Hello.”
Daniel breathed into the phone.
“Em.”
She closed her eyes.
Nobody else called her Em.
“I’m so sorry.”
Emma said nothing.
“Please say something.”
“Is Elena alive?”
“Yes.”
The answer came too fast.
Emma sat forward.
“You know that?”
Silence.
“Daniel.”
“I believe she is.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you sign my consent form?”
Another silence.
“I need to explain this in person.”
“No.”
“Emma—”
“No.”
“Please.”
She looked at Sophie.
Her sister was staring at the floor, giving her privacy without leaving.
Emma said, “Did you ask Claire to make me look like Elena?”
Daniel inhaled.
“It wasn’t like that.”
There it was.
The sentence people used when something was exactly like that.
“What was it like?”
“I was trying to stop something worse.”
Emma almost laughed.
May you like
“What is worse than waking up with somebody else’s face?”
“You don’t understand what Claire was doing.”
