I stared at Jessica\u2019s three messages until the words stopped looking like language.<\/p>\n
I know what Maya told you.<\/p>\n
Come home, Ethan. I can explain everything.<\/p>\n
Eight years of marriage sat behind those sentences. Sunday mornings. Mortgage paperwork. Arguments about paint colors. Her cold feet pressed against my legs in bed. The night she held my hand in the emergency room after I cut my palm open rebuilding the deck. Hundreds of ordinary memories suddenly felt like evidence from a crime scene.<\/p>\n
Maya reached across the desk. \u201cDon\u2019t answer yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow does she know I\u2019m here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re my father\u2019s attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo who knows about this office?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlenty of people know where I work. Very few know you\u2019re here right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked toward the window. Four floors below us, traffic crawled through downtown Portland beneath a low gray sky. Across the street, people moved beneath umbrellas. Any one of them could have been watching the building.<\/p>\n
Maya stood and closed the blinds.<\/p>\n
That simple act frightened me more than if she had panicked.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes Jessica have access to your phone?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe knows my passcode.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLocation sharing?\u201d<\/p>\n
I took out the phone. Jessica and I had enabled family location years earlier after she once lost her phone during a trip to Seattle. I had forgotten about it because neither of us used it.<\/p>\n
My location was still being shared with her.<\/p>\n
I disabled it.<\/p>\n
Maya watched me. \u201cThat may be all this is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMay be?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe could also know more.\u201d<\/p>\n
I picked up the photograph of Victor and the young woman identified as Victoria Morales.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs this definitely her?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe verified the name change.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJessica Bennett.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cVictoria Morales became Victoria Bennett when she was twenty-three. She began using Jessica socially several years later.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy Jessica?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remembered the story she had told me on our third date. She said her mother loved the name Jessica but her father insisted on something old-fashioned, so she eventually chose the name she preferred.<\/p>\n
Even that memory now had edges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about her parents?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHer mother died when Victoria was fourteen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Victor?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were told her father was dead before you met.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat part was true.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at Maya. \u201cYou said Victor died six years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Jessica and I have been married eight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maya nodded.<\/p>\n
The implication landed slowly.<\/p>\n
For the first two years of our marriage, Victor Morales had still been alive.<\/p>\n
I remembered Jessica disappearing for occasional weekends during those years. Conferences. A sick aunt in California. A college friend going through a divorce.<\/p>\n
I had never checked.<\/p>\n
Why would a husband check?<\/p>\n
\u201cDid she see him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to establish that.\u201d<\/p>\n
My phone rang.<\/p>\n
Jessica.<\/p>\n
I let it ring.<\/p>\n
Then she called again.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnswer,\u201d Maya said.<\/p>\n
I looked at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut it on speaker.\u201d<\/p>\n
I accepted the call.<\/p>\n
\u201cEthan?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jessica sounded breathless.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease come home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause this isn\u2019t something we should do over the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat exactly are we doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
A pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cTalking about who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maya\u2019s eyes remained on mine.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour name is Victoria Morales.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silence.<\/p>\n
Not denial.<\/p>\n
Not confusion.<\/p>\n
Just silence.<\/p>\n
Finally Jessica whispered, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Something inside me broke with surprising quietness.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew who she was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore I met you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
Maya scribbled something on a legal pad and turned it toward me.<\/p>\n
ASK WHY SHE APPROACHED YOU.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t need the reminder.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you meet me on purpose?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jessica began crying.<\/p>\n
I had heard her cry before. At funerals. After miscarrying early in our marriage. When her childhood dog died. Those sounds had always activated something instinctive in me\u2014a need to reach for her.<\/p>\n
Now I sat still.<\/p>\n
\u201cJessica.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The word barely reached me.<\/p>\n
I gripped the edge of Maya\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur first meeting wasn\u2019t an accident?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remembered it perfectly.<\/p>\n
A coffee shop near my old office. She had bumped my table while carrying two drinks. Coffee splashed across a folder of invoices. She apologized, bought me another cup, and joked that destroying paperwork was her way of introducing herself.<\/p>\n
I had told that story at our wedding.<\/p>\n
Everyone laughed.<\/p>\n
She had planned it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCome home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEthan, please.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me why you chose me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t choose you the way you think.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat isn\u2019t an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was looking for Arthur.\u201d<\/p>\n
My father.<\/p>\n
Maya leaned forward.<\/p>\n
Jessica continued before I could speak.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father spent years looking for something Arthur had. Documents. Recordings. He believed Arthur knew where they were.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you married me to search my father\u2019s house?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just admitted you approached me because of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first.\u201d<\/p>\n
The phrase hit harder than a denial.<\/p>\n
At first.<\/p>\n
I stood and walked to the other side of the office.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened after that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI fell in love with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I laughed once, without humor.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou expect me to believe that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t expect you to believe anything right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maya wrote another question.<\/p>\n
WHAT DID VICTOR WANT?<\/p>\n
I asked it.<\/p>\n
Jessica went quiet.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvidence,\u201d she finally said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat evidence?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat my father stole from the Morales trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
My pulse quickened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did he steal?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot money exactly. Control. He moved assets through shell companies, pressured trustees, forged signatures. Elena found out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The way Jessica said Elena made me stop.<\/p>\n
There was no contempt in her voice.<\/p>\n
There was shame.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew what Victor did to her?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot when I was young.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut later?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you still helped him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought Arthur had manipulated Elena. That was the story I grew up with.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you came after us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI came looking for records.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou came looking for my father.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd found me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maya gestured for me to keep her talking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen did Victor send you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t send me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t lie again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not. He didn\u2019t know I approached you until later.\u201d<\/p>\n
That surprised Maya too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why did you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I wanted his approval.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jessica\u2019s voice changed. The defensiveness disappeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy whole childhood was about Elena. Even after she vanished, she was there. My father talked about her constantly. How she betrayed the family. How Arthur poisoned her against them. How she stole things that belonged to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was his sister.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re talking like she was an enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo him, she was.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought about Elena\u2019s journal.<\/p>\n
The maple leaf.<\/p>\n
The sketch of my hand.<\/p>\n
Yellow boats.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat changed?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cVictor got sick.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout nine years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
A year before Jessica and I married.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe started talking about unfinished business,\u201d she continued. \u201cHe kept boxes of files. I read them. At first I believed they proved everything he had told me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI found contradictions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPayments to doctors who evaluated Elena. Payments to an investigator who later testified against Arthur. Money transferred on the same dates court motions were filed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maya\u2019s pen stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you still have those records?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cConvenient.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI photographed some.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jessica hesitated.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot over the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n
I almost ended the call.<\/p>\n
Then she said, \u201cYour father wasn\u2019t the only person searching for Elena.\u201d<\/p>\n
My hand tightened around the phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cVictor searched for her until he died.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause she was alive?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause he thought she might be.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at Maya.<\/p>\n
She was already writing.<\/p>\n
WHY?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did he think that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause someone kept accessing money Elena had hidden.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat money?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA private account Victor never controlled.\u201d<\/p>\n
My heart pounded.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen was it last accessed?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jessica took a breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped moving.<\/p>\n
My mother would now be in her early sixties.<\/p>\n
For most of my life, I had pictured her permanently at the age she disappeared. The possibility that she had grown older somewhere\u2014that she had eaten breakfast, gotten gray hair, watched elections, seen technology change, perhaps even searched my name\u2014was almost impossible to hold in my mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJessica.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI swear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve had eight years to tell me any of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead you searched my safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI panicked.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Dad finally found out who you were.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
There it was.<\/p>\n
Not everything.<\/p>\n
But enough.<\/p>\n
Maya leaned toward the phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cVictoria, this is Maya Sharma.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jessica\u2019s breathing stopped for a second.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaya.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou said you photographed Victor\u2019s records. Where are the photographs?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll give them to Ethan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not telling you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I don\u2019t know who Arthur trusted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maya\u2019s face hardened.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re suggesting someone in his circle is compromised?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m saying my father didn\u2019t spend thirty years protecting himself by trusting only one person.\u201d<\/p>\n
A knock sounded somewhere on Jessica\u2019s end of the call.<\/p>\n
She stopped speaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cJessica?\u201d<\/p>\n
Nothing.<\/p>\n
Another knock.<\/p>\n
Then a man\u2019s voice, muffled by distance.<\/p>\n
Jessica whispered something I couldn\u2019t hear.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019s there?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cEthan, don\u2019t come home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maya stood.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat changed?\u201d she demanded.<\/p>\n
Jessica ignored her.<\/p>\n
\u201cEthan, listen carefully. Don\u2019t go to Arthur\u2019s house either.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is there?\u201d<\/p>\n
The line went dead.<\/p>\n
I called back.<\/p>\n
Straight to voicemail.<\/p>\n
Again.<\/p>\n
Voicemail.<\/p>\n
Maya was already dialing another number.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
I grabbed my coat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are you going?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHome.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe just told you not to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s my wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe may also have spent eight years deceiving you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd someone may be at my house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maya blocked the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you walk into something without knowing who\u2019s there, you help nobody.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at her.<\/p>\n
Then my phone vibrated.<\/p>\n
Not Jessica.<\/p>\n
A notification from our home security system.<\/p>\n
FRONT DOOR OPENED.<\/p>\n
Three seconds later:<\/p>\n
OFFICE WINDOW SENSOR TRIGGERED.<\/p>\n
Then:<\/p>\n
SYSTEM DISARMED.<\/p>\n
Someone had entered my house using the alarm code.<\/p>\n
Only three people knew that code.<\/p>\n
Jessica.<\/p>\n
Me.<\/p>\n
And my father.<\/p>\n
Dad was lying in intensive care.<\/p>\n
I stared at Jessica\u2019s three messages until the words stopped looking like language. I know what Maya told you. Come home, Ethan. I can explain everything. Eight years of marriage … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31535,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31500\/revisions\/31535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}