Chapter 11 - What Clara Heard
Clara woke from a nightmare at 2:11 a.m.
Isabel reached her first.
Daniel stood in the doorway while Clara cried into her mother’s shoulder.
“She was pushing me again,” Clara whispered.
“You’re here,” Isabel said. “You’re safe.”
Daniel added, “And no one gets near you without us knowing.”
Clara looked at him.
For a moment, Daniel saw the question children should never have to ask:
Can I trust you to notice next time?
He sat on the floor instead of the bed.
“Clara, I need to tell you something.”
Isabel looked at him but did not stop him.
“I should have listened sooner. To you. To Mom. I didn’t. That was wrong.”
Clara wiped her nose. “Because Grandma is your mom?”
“Yes.”
“Grown-ups can still be bad if they’re somebody’s mom.”
Daniel nodded. “Yes.”
Clara thought about that.
Then she reached for the toy car on the nightstand.
“There’s another thing.”
Daniel and Isabel exchanged a look.
“What thing?” Isabel asked.
“The night Grandma was in Dad’s office, I was hiding behind the couch.”
Daniel’s heart sank.
“Why?”
“I heard her yelling.”
“At who?”
“Mr. Nathan.”
Clara’s voice became small.
“She said, ‘Daniel can’t find out what happened to his father.’”
No one spoke.
Isabel’s hand tightened around Clara’s.
“Did Nathan say anything?”
Clara nodded.
“He said, ‘Pike took care of the car. That’s all anyone needs to know.’”
Daniel felt the air leave the room.
He stood and walked to the window.
Rain streaked the glass.
His father had died in a car.
North Line Recovery handled vehicles.
Pike owned a security company.
And now Clara remembered words that made the old accident look like a sentence with missing punctuation.
Isabel came beside Daniel.
“Do not run after this alone.”
He looked at her.
“I’m not.”
“Daniel.”
“I’m done believing that protecting my family means handling everything myself.”
Her expression softened by one degree.
It mattered.
Daniel called Park.
By morning, detectives had reopened the circumstances of his father’s crash.
At 10:06 a.m., Park called back.
“Daniel, the original car was supposed to have been destroyed after the insurance investigation.”
“Supposed to?”
“It wasn’t.”
He gripped the phone.
“Where is it?”
“We traced the salvage transfer.”
“And?”
May you like
Park exhaled.
“North Line Recovery bought it for one dollar.”
