Chương 13
Bell seemed to understand.
“The status of Rebecca’s husband.”
Daniel frowned.
“You don’t know if he’s alive.”
Bell said, “The records are not as straightforward as I’d like.”
Laura laughed quietly.
“Of course they aren’t.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Why does that determine whether Emily gets the other man’s name?”
Laura met his eyes.
“Because those two men knew each other.”
Silence.
Bell straightened.
“That is new information.”
Helen closed her eyes briefly.
Laura looked almost apologetic.
“I know.”
O’Connell muttered, “There it is.”
Bell ignored him.
“How?”
Laura shook her head.
“I’m not answering until you confirm whether my husband is alive.”
Daniel stood.
“Why?”
Laura looked at him.
“Because if he is, and if he learns I’m alive, the first person he’ll look for is the man in that photograph.”
Emily whispered, “My father.”
Laura’s eyes moved to her.
“Maybe.”
Emily stared at her.
“You just said he was.”
“I said my husband wasn’t.”
“Mom.”
Laura pressed a hand to her forehead.
“I’m sorry.”
Emily turned away.
Daniel said, “So we still don’t know.”
“No.”
“And you knew this could happen.”
“Yes.”
“And you brought us to a resort under your real face and your fake name with an envelope in the glove compartment.”
Laura looked at him.
“When you phrase it like that, I sound stupid.”
“You were stupid.”
“Yes.”
Daniel’s anger faltered.
Laura sat.
“I got comfortable.”
That confession seemed harder than the others.
“I started believing eighteen years meant something was over simply because it hadn’t found me.”
Daniel watched her.
“That part I understand.”
She looked up.
He continued.
“I just wish the thing you got comfortable with was me.”
Laura’s eyes filled.
“It was.”
He looked away.
Bell’s phone buzzed.
Everyone froze.
She checked the message.
Laura stood.
Bell read silently.
Then once more.
“What?” Daniel asked.
Bell looked at Laura.
“We found a more recent record associated with your husband.”
Laura’s face emptied.
Emily stood beside Daniel.
“Alive?” Laura asked.
Bell hesitated.
That hesitation frightened everyone.
“I need to verify it before I tell you.”
Laura laughed once.
It sounded almost like a sob.
Daniel stepped toward her without thinking.
He stopped before touching her.
Laura looked at his hand.
Then at him.
“I don’t deserve you doing that.”
“I wasn’t doing anything.”
“You were going to.”
Daniel lowered his hand.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do anymore.”
Laura nodded.
Bell stepped into the hallway to make a call.
The suite remained silent for several minutes.
Emily picked up an untouched strawberry from the breakfast tray and ate it.
Daniel looked at her.
“You’re eating now?”
“I stress-eat fruit.”
“That is deeply annoying.”
“You raised me well.”
The words slipped out.
Emily froze.
Daniel looked at her.
Then smiled.
“Yes.”
She smiled back.
Laura lowered her head.
At eleven twenty-six, Bell returned.
Her face was serious.
“I confirmed something.”
Laura stood.
Bell closed the suite door.
O’Connell moved away from the window.
Helen put down her pen.
Bell looked directly at Laura.
“The man identified in the old file as your husband is alive.”
Laura stopped breathing.
Daniel watched the transformation in her.
Not surprise.
Not disbelief.
A response older than him.
Her left hand went to her right wrist.
She rubbed it once.
Daniel remembered the wedding where the stranger had grabbed her there.
Emily whispered, “Mom?”
Laura looked at her.
Her face was pale but controlled.
Bell continued.
“He has lived under the same legal name for at least the last several years.”
Laura closed her eyes.
“Does he know?”
“Not from me.”
“Does anyone connected to him know?”
“I’m trying to determine that.”
Laura turned toward the window.
Daniel said, “So now what?”
Bell looked at her.
“Now Laura tells us whether there is a credible reason to treat this as a safety matter.”
Helen touched Laura’s arm.
“You can do that privately.”
Emily stood.
“No.”
Helen looked at her.
Emily’s voice shook.
“She promised.”
Laura turned.
Daniel stepped beside his daughter.
Not against Laura.
Not quite.
But not beside her either.
Laura looked at the two of them.
Eighteen years stood there.
The man she had chosen because he seemed ordinary and safe.
The daughter for whom she had turned ordinary life into a disguise.
Laura looked at Bell.
“Can you guarantee this room is private?”
“The resort says it is.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Bell glanced at O’Connell.
He checked the hallway.
Helen inspected the adjoining door and closed the curtains fully.
Bell placed every phone on the dining table and powered them down.
“No guarantee,” Bell said. “But we can reduce the risk.”
Laura nodded.
That answer satisfied her.
Daniel moved a chair out for Emily.
She sat.
He remained standing.
Laura looked at him.
“You can sit.”
“I’m fine.”
“You do that when you’re scared.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“You don’t get to use knowing me as evidence.”
Laura looked down.
“You’re right.”
He sat anyway.
Emily stared at her mother.
“Before you start.”
Laura waited.
Emily’s fingers tightened around the edge of the chair.
“I need you to understand something.”
Laura nodded.
“If the truth is bad, I still want it.”
Laura’s eyes filled.
“If the man in that picture is awful, I want to know. If he’s dead, I want to know. If he didn’t want me, I want to know.”
Laura swallowed.
“And if Dad isn’t my biological father, that doesn’t make him less my dad.”
Daniel looked down.
Emily’s voice broke.
“But you don’t get to protect me by changing what words mean anymore.”
Laura nodded slowly.
“I understand.”
Emily looked at her sharply.
“Do you?”
Laura thought.
Then shook her head.
“Probably not yet.”
That was the first answer that felt completely honest.
Emily relaxed by a fraction.
Daniel looked at Laura.
“And me?”
Laura’s mouth trembled.
“I don’t know what I can ask from you.”
“Good.”
She nodded.
“I won’t ask you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
“I won’t ask you to stay.”
Daniel looked away.
That answer hurt more than he expected.
Laura continued.
“But I am going to tell you why I did it.”
Daniel looked back at her.
“All of it?”
“As much as I can remember accurately.”
Bell pulled her chair closer.
Helen opened a legal pad.
O’Connell stood near the door.
Outside the suite, a snowblower started somewhere below the balcony.
Its engine rose and fell.
For a few seconds nobody spoke.
Laura looked at her daughter.
“Sarah.”
Emily flinched.
Laura stopped.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
Emily swallowed.
“Say it once more.”
Laura’s eyes filled.
“Sarah.”
Emily breathed in.
Then out.
“Okay.”
Laura looked at Daniel.
He had removed his wedding ring.
It lay on the table beside his hand.
Laura saw it.
Her face tightened.
Daniel covered the ring with his palm.
“Don’t read into it.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“Yes.”
He almost smiled.
Then Laura looked at the sealed evidence bag containing the Polaroid.
Young Rebecca.
The baby.
The damaged face of the unknown man.
A life Daniel had never seen.
A life Emily had once lived without remembering.
Bell said, “Whenever you’re ready.”
Laura’s hands trembled in her lap.
She looked toward the dark television screen and caught her own reflection.
For years she had avoided photographs from the wrong angles because she could sometimes see Rebecca in them.
This morning there was nowhere left for Laura to stand that Rebecca did not follow.
She turned back to her family.
“My name was Rebecca Anne Hale.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
Emily remained still.
Laura took another breath.
“When Emily was born, the man I was married to believed—”
She stopped.
A sound came from the hallway.
Everyone turned.
O’Connell opened the door.
A resort employee stood outside with fresh towels.
“Sorry,” the young man said. “Housekeeping.”
Nobody moved.
O’Connell took the towels.
“Thanks.”
He closed and locked the door.
Daniel laughed.
It came out helpless and strange.
Emily started laughing too.
Laura covered her face.
Even Bell smiled.
The laughter did not last long, but when it ended the room felt more human.
Daniel wiped his eyes.
“Okay.”
Laura looked at him.
“Okay?”
“Try again.”
She nodded.
Emily shifted her chair closer.
Not much.
Enough.
Laura looked at her daughter.
Then at Daniel.
Then at the photograph that had survived eighteen years inside a red envelope because part of her, perhaps the most frightened part, had never been able to throw it away.
Her voice was quieter when she began again.
“My name was Rebecca Anne Hale.”
No one interrupted.
“The man I married was not Emily’s father.”
Daniel’s hand closed around the wedding ring beneath his palm.
Emily breathed slowly.
Laura’s eyes stayed on them.
“And the night I disappeared, I knew that if I made one mistake, at least one of those men would come looking for my daughter.”
Bell leaned forward.
“Which man?”
Laura went still.
Daniel looked at her.
Emily did too.
For the first time, Laura did not look toward a door, a window, a phone, or an officer.
May you like
She looked only at the two people whose lives she had built from the escape.
Then she inhaled, preparing to answer.
