Chương 7
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
Nora drank with both hands curled near the bottle.
“What did Daniel do after that first night?” Ethan asked.
“He left before sunrise. Leah stayed asleep upstairs. He said he needed to retrieve something from a storage unit.”
“Where?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Did he come back?”
“Three days later. He parked behind the grocery store and called Leah. She met him there.”
“You followed?”
“No. She told me afterward.”
“What did he give her?”
“Cash. A phone. The tag.”
“Anything else?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Did she leave with him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he told her they would be crossing into Canada that night.”
Ethan frowned. “From Virginia?”
“He had a car.”
“That’s not a plan.”
“I don’t think plans were his strength by then.”
“They never were.”
Claire adjusted the bottle.
“He wanted her to give birth under another name. She refused.”
“Good.”
“He became angry. He said people would use the baby to find him.”
“That part may have been true.”
“She asked him to surrender.”
“What did he say?”
“That prison would kill him faster than Voss.”
Ethan remembered Daniel at twenty, grinning from the passenger seat of their father’s truck after talking his way out of a speeding ticket. Daniel believed rules were machines designed by less imaginative men.
“What did Leah think he had done?”
“She never answered directly.”
“Meaning she knew.”
“Meaning she was afraid of the answer.”
Nora finished the bottle. Ethan held out his hands.
Claire hesitated only a moment before passing her over.
He rested Nora upright against his chest and patted her back.
Too gently at first.
“A little firmer,” Claire said.
“I know.”
“You’re barely touching her.”
“I said I know.”
Claire stopped speaking.
Ethan tried again. Nora’s body was warm through the blanket. He could feel each breath against his sternum.
After a minute, she burped.
“There,” he whispered.
Claire looked away, but not before he saw her smile.
The following morning, Agent Delgado arrived with another investigator and a local evidence technician. They wore plain clothes and carried more cases than Ethan thought one dog tag required.
Nora slept through most of the interview.
Delgado was shorter than Ethan had imagined, with gray beginning at her temples and a habit of waiting after a person finished speaking. The silence encouraged correction. Claire corrected herself often.
She first said Daniel stayed twelve hours, then remembered it had been closer to eight. She said he wore a black jacket, then a dark green one. She could not remember whether the blood on his sleeve was dry.
Ethan watched Delgado record each inconsistency.
“He arrived while she was recovering from a medical emergency,” Ethan said.
Delgado looked at him. “I understand.”
“She was medicated.”
“I understand that too.”
The second investigator photographed the living room, front step, kitchen, and guest room though six months had passed. He collected the paper bag containing the tag and sealed it inside another container.
Ethan disliked watching the object leave.
“Can you confirm it’s Daniel’s?” he asked.
“We can confirm whether it matches photographs and records,” Delgado said. “Biological material may or may not be useful.”
“Because we’re twins.”
“Because it has been handled by several people, and because identical twins complicate ordinary comparison.”
“What about fingerprints?”
“We’ll see.”
Claire sat with Nora near the fireplace.
Delgado asked to speak with her alone.
Ethan almost objected. Claire did not.
He went upstairs and stood in the nursery. Through the floor, voices became low vibrations without words. He opened the drawer of the changing table and found wipes, diaper cream, and a stack of onesies arranged by size.
One yellow onesie had a duck stitched over the chest.
His mother had bought it for Ellie.
Ethan sat in the rocking chair with the onesie in his hands.
He did not hear Claire come upstairs.
“She’s asking for you,” Claire said.
Ethan placed the onesie back.
“Did Daniel know about the miscarriage before he arrived?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“How did he react?”
“He sat at the kitchen table and stared at his hands. Then he asked whether you knew.”
“What did you say?”
“That I hadn’t told you.”
“And?”
“He said I should wait.”
Ethan looked at her.
Claire’s face tightened. “I know.”
“You took advice about our marriage from a man pretending to be dead.”
“I did not decide because he said it.”
“But it helped.”
“Yes.”
The honesty angered him more than denial would have.
“Why would Daniel want me not to know?”
“He said you would come home.”
“I would have tried.”
“He said leaving your deployment suddenly would draw attention to the family.”
“That sounds like something he invented because he needed this house quiet.”
“I’ve thought about that.”
“Only thought?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That you knew better.”
“I did know better.”
“Then why didn’t you do better?”
Claire looked toward the hallway.
Nora made a faint sound downstairs.
“I was not trying to be good,” Claire said. “I was trying to get through the day without lying on the bathroom floor.”
She walked away before Ethan answered.
Delgado told them the original death investigation would be reopened immediately.
She would not say whether Daniel was already suspected of crimes.
“Was he?” Ethan asked.
“Your brother’s personnel and contractor records contain information we need to review.”
“That means yes.”
“That means I’m not discussing it yet.”
“Do you believe he’s alive?”
Delgado closed her notebook.
“I believe your wife encountered someone who knew private information and carried an object consistent with your brother’s property. That is enough to investigate. Belief comes later.”
Before leaving, she handed Ethan a card with a direct number.
“If he contacts either of you, do not promise money, transportation, identification, or access to the child.”
“What if he comes here?” Claire asked.
“Call emergency services. Don’t block his exit. Don’t argue about the past. Keep distance between him and the baby.”
Claire’s arms tightened.
May you like
Delgado noticed.
“Has he ever hurt a child?”
