Chương 9
“She’s dead now.”
“Yes.”
Maya’s voice remained steady.
Claire stared at the blue tape.
“Did Daniel love Nora?”
Maya looked at her.
“I never met Daniel.”
“Leah talked about him.”
“Leah wanted him to become the person he said he could be. That is not the same as trusting the person he was.”
Ethan recognized the sentence as one Maya had probably repeated to Leah.
“Did Leah want us to keep Nora?” he asked.
“She wanted Claire to care for her temporarily.”
“Not me.”
“She did not know you.”
“She knew I was Daniel’s brother.”
“That may have been a reason for caution, not confidence.”
Ethan accepted the rebuke.
Maya opened a folder and removed a handwritten letter.
“This is addressed to Claire. Leah authorized me to release it if Daniel made contact after her death.”
Claire did not reach for it.
“Read it,” she said.
Maya handed it over.
Claire unfolded the pages.
Her eyes moved slowly. Halfway down the first page, she covered her mouth. At the end, she placed the letter flat and pushed it toward Ethan.
The handwriting was cramped and slanted.
Claire,
If he comes back, he will say he came for Nora. Maybe part of him did. Ask what he came for first.
Do not give him the blue drive. Do not tell him Maya has it. Daniel thinks I kept everything because he never understood that I was more afraid of becoming him than losing him.
Nora should know who her father is one day, but she should not have to become the reason he avoids what he did.
I am sorry I put this in your house.
I am more sorry about Ellie than I ever knew how to say.
Leah
Ethan read the name twice.
“Ellie?”
Claire wiped her face.
“I told her.”
He returned the letter.
“What blue drive?”
Maya said nothing.
Ethan looked at her. “You have it.”
“I did not say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Maya’s phone vibrated on the table. She checked the screen and stood.
“Excuse me.”
She left the room.
Claire folded Leah’s letter along the original crease.
“You told her our baby’s name.”
“Yes.”
“You barely told me.”
“I told you before you left.”
“That she existed, not that she died.”
“I know.”
Ethan turned toward the window. Below them, a mother held a little boy’s hand while he jumped over cracks in the sidewalk.
“Did you use Nora to replace her?”
Claire’s face hardened.
“No.”
“You brought her into Ellie’s nursery.”
“For two nights.”
“You wrapped her in Ellie’s blanket.”
“Because it was clean and soft.”
“You let me pick her up.”
“I gave her to you because your face looked like you were falling.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I don’t know the answer you want.”
“The true one.”
“The true one changes depending on the hour.”
Ethan looked at her.
“Sometimes I hold Nora and think she is only Nora,” Claire said. “Sometimes I think Leah should be holding her. Sometimes I think our baby should be alive. Sometimes I hate myself because feeding Nora at two in the morning feels like getting something back.”
Her fingers tightened around the letter.
“I don’t want Ellie replaced. I want her alive. Those are different things.”
Maya returned with a troubled expression.
“Daniel called my office.”
Claire went still.
“When?” Ethan asked.
“Two minutes ago.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked whether Leah left documents with me.”
“Did he identify himself?”
“He said his name was David Mercer.”
“Did you recognize his voice?”
“I never heard Daniel’s voice.”
Ethan stood. “Did the number display?”
“No.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I could not discuss clients.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me Leah had no right to give away property belonging to him.”
“The drive.”
“Possibly.”
“Did he mention Nora?”
“After I asked.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“What did he say?” Ethan asked.
“That family should stay with family.”
Ethan looked at Nora sleeping in the carrier.
His brother’s family.
His wife’s temporary child.
A baby whose mother had written a warning and died before anyone decided what it meant.
“Call Delgado,” he said.
Maya already had her phone in her hand.
The next three days became a series of interviews, forms, and small humiliations.
Investigators copied their phones. A technician examined the doorbell camera and found that its storage subscription had lapsed eight months earlier. Claire had assumed it still worked because the blue light came on.
A neighbor remembered a dark sedan parked near the house six months ago but could not name the make. Mrs. Alvarez across the street remembered Claire arriving from the hospital at three in the morning. She also remembered a man on the porch.
“He looked like you,” she told Ethan over the fence. “I thought you were home.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“No. I was in my robe.”
“Did you see his leg?”
Mrs. Alvarez stared at him.
“His leg?”
“Did he limp?”
“I was looking through blinds, Ethan. I wasn’t conducting an examination.”
She lowered her voice.
“Is Claire in trouble?”
“No.”
“People don’t bring government cars to a house because no one is in trouble.”
Within a day, two other neighbors had noticed the visits.
By the second evening, Ethan’s mother called.
“Why did Susan Keller ask whether Daniel was alive?”
Ethan stood in the garage, where Claire could not hear.
“Because Susan Keller should spend less time on neighborhood Facebook groups.”
“Is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Talk to me like an officer.”
“I’m not an officer.”
“You sound like your father when he didn’t want to answer.”
Ethan leaned against the workbench.
May you like
A rusted clamp still held a metal shaving from some forgotten project. For a moment he imagined it came from Daniel’s tag. It could not have. Their father’s garage had been in Ohio, sold after his death. This was Ethan’s own garage, with his own tools and his own disorder.
“Someone came to the house claiming to be Daniel.”
