Chapter 10 - The Woman in the Hospital
I called Elise so fast my fingers slipped over the screen. She answered on the fifth ring, breathing hard.
“I'm okay,” she whispered. “Luis is here.”
The paramedic who had saved her at the funeral had returned to give a statement. He'd noticed a visitor trying to enter the room with a stolen badge and stopped her at the door. Hospital security detained the woman, who gave a false name and refused to speak.
I sat on the curb outside the burning greenhouse, dizzy with relief.
“Listen to me,” Elise said. “Dad wanted you there. He wanted the police looking at the fire, not me.”
“Did the woman hurt you?”
“No. She dropped something when Luis grabbed her bag.”
It was a folded photocopy of a death certificate for Samuel Reed. The form had been prepared sixteen years ago but never filed. On the signature line for the person who confirmed his death were the initials D.H.
Mara studied the photograph Elise sent us. “That doesn't establish everything, but it gives us a lead. Samuel's widow might know why it was hidden.”
At home after midnight, I opened Mom's locked bedroom drawer using the spare key beneath the dresser. Inside I found sixteen birthday cards addressed to us, all unsigned. Each contained a crisp hundred-dollar bill.
On the last card was a note: I watched Nora graduate. I watched Elise get her first apartment. Tell them their father is proud.
I was sick with anger. He had been there. Every milestone we thought he'd missed, he'd watched from somewhere nearby.
Behind the cards lay a photograph of Mom standing beside Martin Voss at a highway diner. The date stamped on its back was last month.
May you like
My phone lit up.
A text from Mom's number said: Ask me why I met him before you decide whom to save.
