Chương 5
“Sometimes not talking is resting.”
He looked at her, uncertain.
“Am I in trouble?”
The question was small. It landed harder than Evelyn’s shouting.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“I went outside.”
“You are not in trouble.”
“I lost my sock.”
“I don’t care about the sock.”
“It was the good dark one.”
“We have other dark socks.”
“Not that dark.”
Natalie bent her head until her forehead rested beside his hand.
A quiet sound escaped her. She thought it was a laugh until she felt tears on her face.
Eli touched her hair.
“You look messy.”
“I know.”
“Grandma doesn’t like messy.”
“That is one of Grandma’s many opinions.”
He gave a weak, uncertain smile.
After he slept, Natalie went to the restroom and looked at herself beneath unforgiving fluorescent light. Several blonde strands had fallen from her low bun. Her skin had the gray pallor of exhaustion. A faint crease from the airplane seat crossed one cheek. She removed the conference badge from beneath her coat.
NATALIE MERCER
SENIOR DESIGN DIRECTOR
CHILD-CENTERED PUBLIC SPACES
The irony was too neat to be useful.
She placed the badge in her handbag rather than throwing it away.
At midnight, Dr. Rowan told her to sleep.
Natalie refused.
At one, the surgeon returned with a folded hospital blanket.
“At some point your body will make the decision without your consent,” she said.
“I don’t sleep well in chairs.”
“No one does.”
“Then why design them like this?”
“Probably to prevent people from moving in permanently.”
Natalie looked at the narrow recliner.
“I design hospitals.”
“I know. Your badge was visible earlier.”
“Not medical spaces. Lobbies, family areas, pediatric waiting rooms.”
Dr. Rowan glanced around the cramped room. “Then I assume you have notes.”
“I have several.”
“Write them later.”
Natalie lay back without removing her boots. She slept for forty minutes and dreamed she was searching an airport baggage carousel while Moss circled past her again and again inside a clear plastic bag.
When she woke, Rourke was sitting in the corridor.
He had loosened his tie. A paper cup rested between his hands.
“You stay late,” Natalie said.
“So do you.”
“This is my child.”
“This is my job.”
“Do you have children?”
“One daughter. Twenty.”
“Does she like you?”
“Intermittently.”
Natalie sat beside him. Through the glass, a nurse adjusted Eli’s blanket.
Rourke said, “We obtained the doorbell camera records from your mother’s house.”
“And?”
“There’s a gap between twelve-forty-eight and four-thirty-one.”
“A malfunction?”
“Your mother says the service went offline.”
“It didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“She watches that camera the way other people watch television. Packages, neighbors, delivery drivers. She once sent me a six-minute clip of a teenager turning around in her driveway.”
“Technical review will tell us whether footage was manually deleted.”
“She deleted it.”
“Maybe.”
“Vanessa was already there.”
“Likely.”
“Why are they still free?”
“Because likely is not a charge.”
Natalie stared at his cup.
“Is that coffee?”
“Allegedly.”
“You’re still drinking it.”
“I have lowered my standards over time.”
She almost smiled.
Rourke removed a small notebook from his coat. “Did Vanessa know where your mother kept the shed key?”
“Yes. Everyone did. It hung in the laundry room.”
“Anything valuable stored in the shed?”
“Furniture. Holiday decorations. My father’s old tools. My mother moved things there during renovations.”
“Money? Jewelry? Documents?”
Natalie thought of Evelyn’s habit of hiding valuables in places she considered clever, then telling family members about them so they could admire the cleverness.
“She kept a blue metal box,” Natalie said.
Rourke opened the notebook.
“What was in it?”
“My grandmother’s jewelry. Some cash, maybe. My mother put it in the shed when contractors were working upstairs.”
“How much jewelry?”
“I don’t know. Several pieces. Earrings, a bracelet, an old watch.”
“Would Vanessa know?”
“Yes.”
“Would she have any claim to it?”
“Emotionally? She has a claim to everything.”
“Legally?”
“No.”
The next morning, officers found the blue metal box beneath a tarp in Vanessa’s garage.
Rourke told Natalie in the hospital cafeteria while she picked at eggs that had cooled into yellow rubber.
“The box was empty,” he said.
“My mother will say she gave it to Vanessa.”
“She already has.”
“Did she?”
“Your sister says she did.”
“Then why hide it under a tarp?”
“Your sister says she was protecting family property after the emergency.”
Natalie pushed the tray away.
“Can you prove the jewelry was inside before Thursday?”
“We’re looking at insurance photographs and appraisals.”
“My mother catalogs everything she owns.”
“That may help.”
“It always helps her.”
Rourke drank his coffee.
Natalie said, “Vanessa locked him in the shed because he saw her take the box.”
“That is one possibility.”
“She expected him to stay quiet for a few minutes. Then something went wrong.”
“Possible.”
“She left him there.”
“We don’t know for how long.”
“My mother found out.”
“Possibly.”
“And instead of calling for help, they created the story about the open door.”
Rourke said nothing.
The silence was confirmation only in Natalie’s frightened mind, and she knew it. She hated that knowledge could not keep her from believing it.
Eli was moved out of intensive care that afternoon. The new room had a window facing a parking structure and a narrow couch where Natalie could sleep badly in a different position. His cheeks had regained some color. He could sit up with help, though he tired quickly.
Moss did not come with them.
The detective retained the dinosaur as evidence.
Eli asked for it four times.
Natalie bought a substitute from the hospital gift shop, a blue stuffed dog with one ear longer than the other. Eli examined it politely.
“What’s his name?” she asked.
“He doesn’t have one.”
“You can choose.”
“He’s not staying.”
May you like
She placed the dog on the windowsill.
That evening, a child advocacy specialist named Miriam Cole introduced herself. She wore ordinary clothes and carried no clipboard. She spoke to Eli first about cartoons, school lunch, and whether he preferred dogs or reptiles. He said reptiles because dogs had wet noses.
