Chương 13
“Not on the phone.”
“Meet me.”
“No.”
“You want Leah’s drive. You want to know where Nora is. Meet me.”
“You’re recording.”
“I don’t have to record you to recognize your excuses.”
Daniel exhaled.
“You always needed me to be worse.”
“So you could be the interesting one?”
“So you could be good.”
The line went silent.
Ethan lowered the phone.
Claire opened the front door.
“What did he say?”
Ethan looked at the screen.
“He asked about Nora.”
“First?”
“No.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“He asked about the drive first,” Ethan said.
“Yes.”
The call had lasted three minutes and forty-one seconds.
Delgado traced it to a prepaid phone that stopped transmitting moments later. A camera captured Daniel leaving a pharmacy twenty miles away.
The image showed him more clearly than the grocery-store frame.
Ethan studied it on Delgado’s tablet.
Daniel had lost weight. His beard had grown gray in places. He wore a denim jacket and moved with the old limp. A woman entering the pharmacy held the door. Daniel thanked her.
That ordinary courtesy disturbed Ethan.
He had imagined a fugitive as someone marked visibly by danger. Daniel still stepped aside for strangers.
“He’ll contact me again,” Ethan said.
“Probably,” Delgado replied.
“I can bring him in.”
“No.”
“He trusts me.”
“He left a note to intimidate you.”
“He knew I’d report it.”
“That does not make it less threatening.”
“He needs the drive.”
“Which you do not have.”
“He may not believe that.”
Delgado studied him.
“You’re considering lying to him.”
“I’m considering ending this.”
“That is not your job.”
“He made it my family.”
“He made it an investigation.”
“Before you had it.”
“Exactly.”
Delgado leaned forward.
“Your brother has spent eighteen months avoiding consequences through deception. Do not assume a childhood relationship gives you control over him now.”
“I know him.”
“You knew him.”
The correction stayed with Ethan.
That night he found Claire in the nursery removing the paper moon with Ellie’s name.
“What are you doing?”
“It fell on one side.”
“You’re taking it down.”
“I’m fixing it.”
She held the moon by its string.
Ethan stepped into the room.
“Leave it.”
“It looks strange.”
“Leave it.”
Claire rehung the moon.
It tilted slightly.
“Your mother wants to take Nora to Ohio,” Claire said.
“She told you?”
“She asked whether I had considered family placement.”
“She shouldn’t have.”
“Do you agree?”
“No.”
Claire turned.
“You answered quickly.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“About Nora staying?”
“About Nora not being moved around because adults can’t decide what she means to them.”
Claire sat in the rocking chair.
“What does she mean to you?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That is the first honest thing either of us has said about her.”
Ethan leaned against the crib.
“I don’t want Daniel to take her.”
“Neither do I.”
“That doesn’t make her ours.”
“No.”
“We might be asked to care for her for months.”
“Yes.”
“We might be told tomorrow she’s going somewhere else.”
Claire touched the arm of the chair.
“Yes.”
“Can you survive that?”
“No.”
The answer startled him.
Claire looked up.
“But I can do it.”
Ethan lowered his eyes.
The distinction was one he understood.
A week after his return, Ethan attended a formal interview at a federal building outside Washington. He surrendered his phone during the meeting and answered questions about Daniel’s habits, contacts, finances, and former friends.
The investigators asked whether Ethan had ever lent Daniel identification.
Once, years earlier, Daniel used Ethan’s driver’s license to enter a bar after losing his own. Ethan had forgotten until asked.
They asked whether Daniel knew Ethan’s service number.
Probably.
Passwords?
Some old ones.
Security questions?
Almost all of them.
The interviewer wrote for several minutes.
“Could he impersonate you convincingly?”
“In person?”
“In any context.”
Ethan thought of Daniel signing detention slips for him in high school. He thought of teachers who could not tell them apart and girlfriends who claimed they always could.
“He could imitate me,” Ethan said. “He couldn’t be me for long.”
“How long?”
“With strangers? Hours. With my mother, maybe minutes. With Claire, less.”
The interviewer looked up.
“Why less?”
“She doesn’t look only at my face.”
The answer stayed in the room.
When Ethan came home, Claire was sitting on the porch steps with Nora and a packed diaper bag.
His stomach tightened.
“What happened?”
“Denise wants Nora assessed at a pediatric clinic.”
“Why is the bag packed?”
“Because she said we should prepare in case the placement changes.”
“Today?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
Ethan sat beside her.
Nora slept in a carrier against Claire’s chest.
“They asked whether Daniel could impersonate me,” he said.
Claire looked at him. “Could he?”
“Not with you.”
“No.”
“You were sure that night?”
“I was sure the moment he came close.”
“How?”
Claire considered.
“You look at a room before you enter it. Daniel looked at people first.”
“That sounds like Daniel was kinder.”
“It wasn’t kindness. He was checking what they could give him.”
Ethan let out a breath.
“You’ve thought about this.”
“For six months.”
He looked at Nora.
“What if he comes back looking like me?”
“I’ll know.”
“And if I’m not here?”
“I’ll still know.”
At the clinic, Nora was weighed, measured, and examined. She had gained six ounces. Claire smiled with exhausted pride when the nurse said it.
Ethan signed nothing because he had no authority.
Denise met them afterward and explained that the placement would continue under increased supervision. Ethan had passed the initial background check. His military status did not disqualify him, but future deployments and uncertainty in the marriage would matter.
“We’re not divorcing,” Claire said.
Ethan looked at her.
Denise noticed.
“I did not say you were.”
In the parking lot, Ethan asked, “Are we?”
Claire buckled Nora into the car seat.
“I don’t know.”
“You just told her no.”
“I told her we’re not doing it now.”
“That’s different.”
May you like
“Yes.”
They stood beside the car while traffic moved through the medical complex.
