DON'T TRUST THE MAN IN THE CHAIR

"Used where?" I asked.

"West gate. Then the service entrance."

Luke stopped beside the key. A faded blue stripe marked its bow. Emma stared at it without moving.

"The technician disabled every credential in the old controller," Luke said. "But we have a person on the grounds. Security is searching."

"Is it him?" Emma asked.

"We don't know."

She stood slowly.

"My father used blue paint on service keys. So he'd know which ones to take on a job."

Luke looked up.

"You remember that?"

"There was a ring of them in a kitchen drawer. Mom hated the paint flakes getting everywhere."

She gave an involuntary little smile. It vanished as she realized what she'd remembered.

I had watched men hear that their money was gone with less distress than I saw on her face.

"Come to the study," I said.

Her shoulders stiffened.

I corrected myself before she answered.

"Please. Until they finish searching."

She looked at the guard near the door, then at me.

"Am I allowed to leave afterward?"

"Yes."

"Even if you don't like my answers?"

"Yes, Emma."

Luke called someone to collect the key without disturbing the floor around it. We went to the study together. He left the door open until the guard took his place outside.

Emma sat opposite my desk. She reached into her uniform pocket and brought out a folded sheet of paper.

"There was something else."

I looked at it.

"When?"

"This morning. In my mailbox."

She handed it to Luke.

He unfolded it on the desk.

You should not trust the man in the chair.

I read the sentence twice.

The anger came easily. Someone had been near her apartment. Someone had decided my disability was the simplest way to identify me. Someone was trying to put distance between us.

Then I looked at Emma and remembered that I had done an excellent job of creating distance myself.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Luke asked.

"I wasn't sure whether it was a threat or a warning."

"What do you think now?"

"I don't know."

Her eyes went to me. I let them stay there. I wouldn't make her reassure me because a stranger had written something cruel.

"Whoever wrote it knew where you live," I said. "We can arrange someone to check the building. With your permission."

She hesitated.

"Just the outside. And the mailbox."

"Just those."

Luke stepped aside to make the call.

Emma rubbed the fold in her sleeve.

"You could have sent someone without asking."

"I already tried doing that."

She looked up.

"You didn't like the result," she said.

"Neither did you."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then she looked toward the note.

"If that man is my father, I don't know what I want to happen."

"You don't have to know yet."

"Everyone keeps assuming I'll want to see him."

"Do you?"

She swallowed.

"I want him to have an answer that doesn't make me feel stupid for waiting."

I turned my chair so I was directly opposite her rather than sheltered behind the desk.

"You were eighteen."

"I knew people could lie."

"Knowing that doesn't stop you believing your father."

Her eyes filled. She blinked hard and looked down.

I didn't hand her a tissue immediately. Something told me she would hear that as permission to break down, and she was working too hard to keep herself together.

"My mother kept the bills in a box," she said. "At first, she wanted to show him what needed paying when he came back. Later she didn't know why she had the box."

I listened.

"One morning she asked if I was renting the spare room. I told her I was her daughter. She apologized like she'd offended a stranger."

She pressed her fingers against her mouth.

"That's what he missed. All those mornings. I don't think any answer is going to fix that."

"No," I said quietly. "Probably not."

She looked at me, almost relieved that I hadn't tried to improve the truth.

Luke returned with a security report. The grounds were clear. Footage showed a man entering, carrying the key, then leaving through the rear delivery gate during a brief camera interruption.

He walked with a stiff right leg.

Emma leaned toward the monitor.

"Dad hurt his hip years before he left."

"You recognize the walk?" Luke asked.

"I think so."

She touched the screen, then withdrew her hand as if the gesture embarrassed her.

"We still need identification," Luke said gently.

"I know."

He changed the recording.

"There's another visitor. We found this while checking the nights you were on shift."

I stiffened. Emma noticed.

"It was a corridor search," Luke said. "We looked for anyone entering the private wing."

The timestamp showed the night of the severe pain episode. Emma came out of my room carrying the empty soup bowl. A woman in a raincoat stood near the linen room, beyond the usual staff entrance.

She held out an envelope.

Emma accepted it.

The woman said something, then turned away. Emma tucked the envelope into her apron and went downstairs.

Luke paused the image.

Emma leaned closer.

"I remember this."

I looked at her.

"What did she give you?"

"She said it was paperwork from the facility. Something they needed signed about my mother's account."

"At three in the morning?"

"I thought she'd finished her shift. I'd seen her at the facility before."

"Did you open it?" Luke asked.

"I put it in my apron. I went back upstairs later to check Danny's water, and I sat in the hall for a few minutes. When I changed before leaving, it wasn't there."

She frowned, reconstructing the night.

"I thought I'd dropped it. I called the facility the next afternoon. They said there was no urgent paperwork. I assumed she'd meant a form they already had."

"Why not mention the visitor?"

"Because she was wearing a temporary maintenance badge. I didn't know she wasn't supposed to be there."

Luke enlarged the frame. A pale rectangle showed beneath the raincoat.

"An old Northstar visitor badge," he said. "We should have withdrawn every one of those."

For the first time, the failure belonged visibly to the house instead of the woman sitting in it.

The hood concealed most of the visitor's face. A small circular pendant rested at her throat.

Emma touched her collar.

"My mother had a necklace like that."

She drew out a thin chain. The silver pendant held between her fingers had a narrow line through its center.

"She gave it to me when she moved into care."

"Could the woman have a matching one?" Luke asked.

"Maybe. They aren't one of a kind."

He advanced the recording. As the woman turned, her hood shifted.

Emma went still.

"Maribel."

"You know her?"

"Maribel Ortiz. She works at my mother's facility. In the office now. She used to help with appointments."

Luke wrote the name down.

"I saw her yesterday," Emma said.

Her voice had changed. Whatever uncertainty she felt about her father, she had none about her mother.

She took out her phone and called.

I watched her fingers tighten around it.

"It's Emma Carter. I'm checking on Margaret."

She listened.

"Maribel? Yes, I wanted to know if she's settled tonight."

Another pause.

"I'm coming over."

Emma looked at me sharply.

"Why shouldn't I?"

Luke moved closer without interrupting.

"No," she said. "I'm not alone."

Her face drained of color.

She ended the call and stood.

"She said Mom was resting and I shouldn't upset her. Then she asked whether I was by myself."

I turned toward the door.

"Luke, get the car."

Emma looked at me.

"I need to go to my mother."

"I know."

"I'm not asking permission."

"You don't need it. I'm coming with you."

She held my gaze for a second.

Then she reached for her coat.