Chương 2
“Who is she?”
“She was a respiratory therapist at St. Vincent Children’s.”
The name caused a physical change in Ethan’s stomach.
St. Vincent Children’s had been the second hospital.
Not the one where Rachel had delivered.
The one their daughter had been transferred to six hours after birth.
He pushed his glasses higher on his nose.
“I thought she went to Colorado.”
“She did. She moved back last year.”
“How would you know that?”
“Because she told me.”
“Why would she contact you?”
“Her sister died in January.”
Ethan waited.
Rachel looked at the bracelet again.
“Her sister was Linda Mercer.”
He searched his memory.
Nothing.
Rachel saw it.
“Night nurse. Neonatal transport team.”
The garage seemed colder.
“No.”
“You remember her?”
“I remember the name.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“I signed a statement about her.”
Rachel’s face sharpened.
“What statement?”
Ethan hesitated.
It was small, but Rachel caught it.
“What statement, Ethan?”
“After the transfer.”
“You never told me that.”
“It wasn’t important.”
“To who?”
“To anything that happened.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I was asked whether I had seen a nurse remove an identification band in the ambulance bay.”
Rachel’s expression went still.
“You saw that?”
“No. That was the question. I said I hadn’t.”
“When?”
“The morning after Ava died.”
Rachel took a step toward him.
“Who asked you?”
“Hospital administration. Risk management. I don’t remember.”
“You remember.”
“Rachel—”
“You remember everything when you want to.”
“That is not fair.”
“It has never once stopped you.”
He rubbed his forehead.
The pressure behind his eyes had started to build.
“A woman. Late forties, maybe fifty. Red hair. She said there had been a documentation issue during transfer and they were asking everyone who had been in the corridor.”
“Name?”
“I don’t know.”
“You signed something.”
“I had not slept in almost two days.”
“That doesn’t erase the paper.”
“I didn’t keep a copy.”
Rachel stared at him with the particular expression she used when she wanted to say something cruel and was deciding whether cruelty would be useful.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing.”
“Say it.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“That’s new.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Do you know how hard it has been not to hate you?”
The question silenced them both.
Rachel’s breathing changed first. She looked away, embarrassed by the sentence as soon as it existed.
Ethan did not defend himself.
Somewhere near the garage entrance, a security gate opened with a mechanical rattle. A gray SUV descended the ramp, passed them slowly, then continued toward the far end. The driver glanced over once.
Rachel folded her arms.
Ethan waited until the vehicle was gone.
“Why did Diane contact you?”
“Because Linda left boxes.”
“What boxes?”
“Everything she didn’t want her husband to find.”
“Why?”
“Diane thinks Linda was planning to come forward before she got sick.”
“Come forward about what?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“That’s convenient.”
“She knows her sister was terrified of a man named Carl Reeve.”
Ethan shook his head.
“Never heard of him.”
“He was the night administrator at St. Vincent when Ava was transferred.”
“Was?”
“He resigned four months later.”
“Why?”
“Officially? Family reasons.”
“And unofficially?”
“I’m not going to fill in blanks just because they look ugly.”
He looked at her more carefully.
That sentence surprised him.
Nine years earlier Rachel would have filled in every blank. She had spent six months after the funeral requesting records from both hospitals, comparing handwritten times against electronic timestamps and calling nurses who had long since stopped returning her messages. Ethan had eventually started hiding unopened hospital envelopes because every new document sent her into another three-day spiral.
At the time he had called it obsession.
She had called it motherhood.
Neither word had helped.
“Diane found the bracelet taped inside a notebook,” Rachel said. “The notebook had Ava’s transfer number in it.”
Ethan’s eyes returned to the envelope.
“And the photograph?”
“That came later.”
“How?”
“A name.”
“What name?”
Rachel paused.
“Emily Carter.”
“That’s the girl?”
“That’s what she’s called.”
The phrasing bothered him.
“That’s what she’s called?”
“I’m trying not to call her Ava.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I know.”
“Because we don’t know.”
“I said I know.”
“Then say Emily.”
Rachel looked at him for a long moment.
“Emily is eleven years old. She lives in Fairfax with Michael and Joanna Carter.”
Ethan took a step backward.
Eleven.
Ava would have turned eleven in February.
He had thought ten earlier because the photograph made her look small.
“Do they know?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
“They’re not criminals, Ethan.”
“You investigated them.”
“I had someone investigate records.”
“You had someone photograph their child.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“But it did.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“A licensed investigator.”
“You hired a private investigator to follow an eleven-year-old?”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“How else should I say it?”
“I hired him to confirm that the family still lived at the address attached to a pediatric billing record.”
“And he took pictures.”
“One picture.”
“That you put in an evidence envelope and slammed onto my car.”
Rachel’s eyes hardened.
“You’re right.”
The concession stopped him.
She exhaled.
“That part was wrong. I told him I didn’t want photographs of her. He took one when Joanna came out of a coffee shop with her. I should have destroyed it.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Her answer took several seconds.
“Because she has your ear.”
Ethan looked down.
His left ear had the same small crescent notch.
So did his mother’s.
He touched it without meaning to.
Rachel saw.
“That proves nothing,” he said.
“I know.”
He hated how often they were saying that.
He picked up the envelope.
“I’m taking this.”
“No.”
“You brought it to me.”
“I brought it to show you.”
“You expect me to sleep after this?”
“I don’t expect either of us to sleep.”
“Then I’m reading it.”
“Not alone.”
“Why?”
“Because there are things in there you’re going to want to explain away.”
May you like
His face tightened.
“Maybe some of them have explanations.”
