Chương 7
“Who was angry?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at him.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to understand why I waited.”
There it was.
The part she had been waiting for.
The reason behind the three years of silence.
“Why did you wait?”
Ethan looked down at his coffee.
“I didn’t know if Daniel was dead.”
Mara felt the words before she understood them.
Her hand tightened around the document.
“What?”
“He told me not to contact you unless something happened.”
“Something happened?”
“He meant unless someone came looking.”
The room seemed suddenly too bright.
“Someone did.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
Mara pushed back from the table.
A chair scraped against the floor nearby. A woman glanced over and then quickly looked away.
“You found my address.”
“Yes.”
“You had my brother’s key.”
“Yes.”
“You have documents about an investigation he was doing.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re telling me you don’t know who is involved?”
Ethan did not answer.
That silence was enough.
Mara stood.
“I’m done.”
“Mara.”
She stopped.
Not because he said her name.
Because of how he said it.
Not like a warning.
Like a request.
She hated that she noticed the difference.
“Daniel left something else,” Ethan said.
She turned.
“What?”
“He left instructions.”
The anger returned.
“Instructions for who?”
“For whoever found the key.”
“You mean you.”
“Yes.”
“And he never told me?”
“No.”
The word was quiet.
That hurt more than she expected.
Mara sat back down.
Slowly.
“What did he write?”
Ethan opened the folder again.
This time his hands shook slightly.
A small detail.
One he probably hoped she would not notice.
Daniel noticed things like that.
Mara noticed them because Daniel taught her to.
“He wrote one sentence.”
“What sentence?”
Ethan looked at the paper.
Then at her.
“He said, ‘If Mara gets involved, tell her the truth before she starts looking for it herself.’”
The anger drained out of her face.
For three years, everyone had told her Daniel was gone.
Nobody had ever suggested Daniel expected her to keep searching.
“He knew me.”
Ethan gave a small nod.
“He did.”
“No.”
She looked at the document again.
“He knew exactly what I would do.”
Neither of them spoke.
Outside, a bus moved through the intersection, spraying water along the curb.
A teenager in a blue jacket ran after it and missed the doors by seconds. He stood there frustrated, then laughed at himself and checked his phone.
Normal life.
Mara hated how much she missed normal life.
“What else did he leave?” she asked.
Ethan reached into the folder.
Before he could remove anything, his phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
The color left his face.
Mara noticed.
“What?”
Ethan did not answer.
He turned the phone around.
A message had appeared from an unknown number.
One sentence.
Stop asking questions you don’t understand.
Mara read it twice.
Then she looked at Ethan.
“You got that now?”
He nodded.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“You don’t get to say that again.”
Ethan looked at the message.
Then at the key sitting between them.
For the first time since she met him, he looked afraid.
“I think Daniel was wrong.”
“About what?”
“He thought whoever was watching him wanted him to stop.”
Mara waited.
Ethan swallowed.
“I think they wanted him to disappear.”
The message remained glowing on his phone.
Mara reached for it.
Ethan stopped her.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if they know you saw it—”
“They already know.”
She took the phone from his hand.
The screen went dark as her fingers touched it.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then Mara placed the key back into the plastic bag.
Her brother had spent three years leaving questions behind.
She had spent three years chasing answers.
Now she finally had one.
Someone had been watching Daniel.
And now they were watching her.
She stood, picked up the folder, and looked at Ethan.
“I’m going to find out what happened.”
Ethan looked like he wanted to argue.
Instead he said, “That’s exactly what he was afraid of.”
Mara held his gaze.
“No.”
She slipped the documents into her bag.
“That’s exactly what he was counting on.”
Outside the coffee shop, her phone began ringing.
The number was blocked.
This time, she answered.
The voice on the other end did not speak right away.
Mara held the phone against her ear and listened to the silence.
It was different from the silence before.
This one felt occupied.
Someone was there.
Someone was deciding how much of themselves to reveal.
“Who is this?” Mara asked.
A faint breath moved through the speaker.
“You should not have taken the folder.”
Her grip tightened around her bag.
The coffee shop door opened behind her, letting in a rush of cold air and the sound of traffic.
She turned instinctively.
Nobody looked familiar.
Nobody looked like they were waiting.
“How do you know I have it?”
The person on the phone ignored the question.
“Ethan was supposed to leave you alone.”
Mara looked across the table.
Ethan was still sitting there.
He had gone completely still.
He was watching her face, not the phone.
That bothered her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your brother made the same mistake twice.”
Her stomach tightened.
“What mistake?”
The line went quiet.
Then the call ended.
Mara stared at the dark screen.
For several seconds, she did nothing.
The people around her continued with their ordinary lives.
A man complained about the price of a sandwich.
A woman searched through her purse for a missing pen.
A worker wiped down a table that had not been used.
Nobody knew that three years of uncertainty had just become something more dangerous.
Ethan stood slowly.
“Who was it?”
Mara slipped the phone into her coat pocket.
“You tell me.”
His expression changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
“I don’t know.”
May you like
She almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
