Chương 6
Delgado asked whether Daniel had distinguishing marks.
“Scar on his left knee,” Ethan said. “Small burn scar under his right jaw. He broke his left little finger twice. It bends inward.”
“Your wife saw those?”
“I saw the knee scar,” Claire said near the speaker. “Not the others.”
“Did he allow photographs?”
“No.”
“Did he give a reason?”
“He said facial recognition could find him.”
Delgado made a sound that might have been a note being written.
“What was his emotional state?”
Claire looked at Ethan before answering. “Controlled until he wasn’t.”
“Describe that.”
“He spoke quietly. He kept asking the same questions. When I said Ethan would want to know, he knocked a glass off the kitchen counter.”
“Intentionally?”
“I don’t think so. He was reaching for my phone.”
“Did he apologize?”
“No. Leah cleaned it.”
Ethan pictured broken glass on the kitchen floor while Claire bled upstairs. He had not known the glass existed. The house had absorbed the incident and returned to looking like itself.
Delgado instructed them not to discuss the matter publicly. She said someone would collect the tag the next morning and conduct formal interviews.
“What about the child?” Claire asked.
“Child welfare decisions are outside my authority.”
“Will you tell them?”
“If evidence suggests immediate risk.”
“There is immediate risk.”
“What specific threat has been made?”
Claire looked at Ethan.
“None,” she said.
“Then lock the house and contact local police if anyone appears.”
After the call, Claire checked every window. Ethan followed and checked them again.
Upstairs, the nursery door stood half open.
The walls had been painted a muted green. Ethan had chosen the color from photographs Claire sent before he left. A wooden crib stood beneath a mobile of felt clouds. His mother’s blankets were folded on a shelf.
A small paper moon hung over the changing table. It bore the name ELLIE in Claire’s handwriting.
That was the name they had chosen.
Nora slept downstairs beneath a white blanket that belonged to Ellie.
Ethan stood in the doorway until Claire came behind him.
“I couldn’t repaint it,” she said.
He stepped inside.
The crib mattress was bare. A package of newborn diapers sat open on the floor.
“You brought Nora up here?”
“For two nights. Then I moved the portable crib downstairs because the room felt wrong.”
“Everything feels wrong.”
“I know.”
He turned to her.
“Stop saying you know.”
Claire nodded.
He sat in the rocking chair. The wooden arms were smooth and pale. He had assembled it before deployment, swearing at the instructions while Claire filmed him.
“I kept thinking something would happen,” he said. “Every time you didn’t answer, I thought hospital. Every time the phone rang after midnight, I thought you or the baby. Then I’d tell myself I was being dramatic.”
Claire leaned against the changing table.
“I listened to your messages.”
“What messages?”
“The ones you sent for her.”
Ethan had recorded short messages for the baby after nights when he could not sleep. He talked about bad coffee, the smell of rain on concrete, the dog he wanted to adopt when he got home. He assumed Claire played them through her stomach.
“You listened after she was gone.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
He did not ask whether she had played them for Nora.
The answer might have broken something he still needed intact.
At nine, Claire heated canned soup. Ethan ate because refusing would have turned food into another argument. Claire held Nora at the table and managed three spoonfuls with her free hand.
“You hold her too much,” Ethan said.
Claire looked up.
“I’m not criticizing. I read babies can get used to sleeping in arms.”
“They also stop breathing sometimes.”
The sentence came out flat.
Ethan set down his spoon.
“Has she?”
“No.”
“But you think she will.”
“I watched Leah stop breathing.”
He had no answer.
A car slowed outside. Both of them turned toward the window.
It continued down the street.
Claire gave a brittle laugh. “This is how it’s been.”
Ethan stood and closed the blinds.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I’m not tired.”
“You fell asleep at a stoplight when you came home last time.”
“That was after thirty hours awake.”
“How long has it been now?”
“Twenty-six.”
Claire carried Nora to the crib.
“You can take the bed.”
“It’s my bed.”
“I meant I’ll stay down here.”
“No.”
Claire waited.
Ethan regretted the sharpness but did not correct it.
“I’ll sleep in the guest room,” he said.
“That’s where Leah stayed.”
“Then I’ll take the sofa.”
“Daniel slept there.”
The room seemed to shrink around the names.
Ethan looked toward the stairs. “I’ll take the bed.”
Claire nodded.
Neither suggested she join him.
At two thirteen in the morning, Nora cried.
Ethan woke reaching for a weapon that was locked inside his duffel.
For several seconds he did not know where he was. Then the ceiling fan came into focus, followed by the empty half of the bed.
Nora’s cry rose from downstairs. It was not loud, but it had a raw, astonished quality, as though hunger were a betrayal no one had warned her about.
Ethan went down.
Claire sat on the sofa with the baby and a bottle. Her hair had come completely loose. She looked too tired to be surprised by him.
“I’ve got her,” she whispered.
“I can see that.”
“You need sleep.”
“So do you.”
He sat beside her.
Nora’s cry softened when the bottle touched her mouth. Claire’s shoulders lowered.
“Leah hated night feedings,” she said. “She said babies should be reasonable enough to eat during business hours.”
“Daniel used to say mornings were a design flaw.”
“She told me.”
The mention of his brother felt less threatening in the dark.
“What was she like?”
“Suspicious. Funny when she didn’t mean to be. She hated mayonnaise. She watched home-renovation shows and complained that nobody ever checked the permits.”
“Did she love him?”
May you like
Claire considered the question.
“She kept waiting for him.”
