Chapter 8 — What She Chose

I forwarded the photograph to Priya and Ortiz. Then I called the neighbor across from the Alder Street house.

Mrs. Callahan answered on the fourth ring.

“Daniel? I saw a young man outside your place about half an hour ago.”

“What was he doing?”

“Taking pictures. I asked if I could help him. He said he was an investor.”

“Did he go inside?”

“No. He drove away when I came onto the porch.”

I thanked her and asked her to call me if he returned. Priya advised me to leave the house locked and let Ortiz handle the message. I stayed at my apartment.

The next morning, Ortiz identified the sender as Evan. He claimed he had meant to photograph renovations he planned to make once the sale went through. The words beneath the picture were, he said, a complaint about Marianne’s promises.

Ortiz told me all that without asking me to accept it.

“I don’t want him near the house,” I said.

“I’ve documented the message. Call us if he returns or contacts you again. Your attorney can address the property access as well.”

Priya arranged for the locks to be changed. I drove over after the locksmith left, carrying the documents my father had kept in a metal box under his bed.

The house smelled faintly of furniture polish. Marianne had been there recently; she always used too much on the banister. On the dining table sat a stack of old mail tied with string. She had cleared out drawers to show the house to Danner.

I photographed everything before touching it.

In my father’s room, I found the metal box beneath folded blankets. It held his deed, insurance papers, and letters he had never thrown away. Priya had asked me to locate any document Marianne might have used to claim authority over the house.

Halfway through the box, I found a folder marked

Mercer Trucking, 1998

.

Inside were invoices, bank notices, and a copy of a cashier’s check. My father had paid a debt owed by my mother’s family before I was born. The amount was large enough to have cost him most of what he had saved.

I remembered Marianne telling a different story.

According to her, Evan’s father, Thomas Cross, had saved her family business when everyone else turned away. It was the explanation she gave whenever I asked why Thomas’s son came first. She owed Thomas, she said. My father understood.

The check in my hands told me my father had paid somebody. It didn’t prove what Thomas had or hadn’t done. I photographed the folder and put it back in the box.

My phone rang. It was Rosa.

“One of the servers from Evan’s shop called me,” she said. “They cut her shift and three others. People are asking whether the place is closing.”

“That quickly?”

“She says a supplier came by asking for payment. Evan told everyone the money was tied up because you sued him.”

“I haven’t sued him.”

“I told her.”

The fire had put my staff out of work. Now Evan’s workers were getting dragged into his finances too. I asked Rosa for the supplier’s name, then sent it to Priya in case it mattered to Danner’s deposit.

By afternoon, the remaining payment records arrived. Evan had used the deposit for equipment, a lease payment, and an outstanding balance from his previous business. Almost none of it remained in the company account.

Danner called me after speaking with Priya.

“She told me to pursue the people who took my money,” he said. “I intend to.”

“I would too.”

“I blamed you when I first found out. Your mother said you were too busy to handle the sale yourself. She knew details about your restaurant. I thought that made it real.”

“She knows a lot about me.”

“I’m beginning to understand that.”

I returned to the apartment with my father’s folder in my bag.

Natalie was waiting outside. She wore the same cream coat from the opening, though it was warm enough that she had left it unbuttoned.

“I need to know what Evan told you,” she said.

“About the fire?”

“About us.”

“He hasn’t told me anything useful.”

She followed me through the building’s front door. I stopped before the stairs.

“I’m not inviting you in.”

“I know.” She rested a hand on the railing. “I went to Ortiz again.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Evan called me after he left the restaurant. I didn’t answer. Then he sent a message saying his mother had panicked but that everything was handled.”

“Do you still have it?”

“I deleted it. Ortiz knows. She’s checking whether it can be recovered.”

I waited.

“I didn’t call you that night,” Natalie said. “I was afraid you’d ask what I knew.”

“You thought the restaurant was damaged.”

“I thought it was closed. In the morning, when I saw the news, I understood how bad it was.”

“And you brought me a sandwich.”

“I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

Her voice was flat. She seemed to have exhausted her excuses.

“Is the baby Evan’s?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

It was the first answer she had given me that didn’t try to decide what I was allowed to feel.

“I’ll arrange the testing when it’s possible,” she said. “I’m not asking you to come back to me.”

“Good.”

She nodded once. It hurt to see her accept it. It would have hurt more if she hadn’t.

After she left, I called Priya about the folder. She said she could review the documents, but warned me that a check alone might not settle an old family story.

“I’m not trying to win an argument with my mother,” I said. “I want to know why my father kept this.”

The answer came from a name written on one of the invoices:

Helen Ward

. She had signed as the bookkeeper for my mother’s family business.

There was an address beside her name. I searched it, expecting nothing. Instead, I found a current number for a bookkeeping office in New Jersey, still operating under Helen Ward’s name.

I called before I could talk myself out of it.

A woman answered.

When I told her who my parents were, she went silent.

“I wondered when someone from your family would ask,” she said.