Chapter 6
Police questioned Vivian for six hours.
She said nothing.
Not one word after “lawyer.”
I watched through the glass once.
Only once.
She sat straight-backed under fluorescent lights, hands folded, face washed clean of tears.
I did not recognize her.
Maybe I never had.
Officer Hale found me in the corridor.
“We searched the house.”
I stood.
“And?”
“There are more spaces.”
My stomach turned.
“What does that mean?”
“Old service passages. Hidden doors. One room behind the upstairs linen closet.”
I thought of Ellie sleeping down the hall from that closet.
My knees nearly gave out.
“What was in it?”
“Medical supplies. Children’s clothes. A prepaid phone. Documents.”
“What documents?”
She hesitated.
“Birth certificate copies. Death certificate copies. Old financial papers tied to your father.”
Mara covered her mouth.
I whispered, “Vivian knew all of this.”
Officer Hale’s face softened.
“It looks that way.”
That evening, Mara took Ellie to get food while I stayed outside Nora’s room.
Nora slept with a nurse nearby.
I stood behind the glass and tried to force my mind into order.
Claire Bell.
My father.
A hidden child.
A possible murder.
Vivian.
My wife.
A woman who had built a normal life on top of a buried one.
Mara returned with Ellie asleep against her shoulder.
“She crashed.”
I touched Ellie’s hair.
“She fed Nora for three days.”
“She saved her.”
“She shouldn’t have had to.”
“No child should.”
Mara looked toward Nora.
“What are you going to do if she’s Dad’s daughter?”
I stared at the little girl.
“She’s a child.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one that matters tonight.”
My lawyer, Peter Sloan, arrived just before midnight.
He was calm in expensive suits and ruthless in courtrooms.
But when I told him everything, even he went pale.
“We need DNA.”
“I know.”
“We need guardianship protections.”
“I know.”
“And Daniel, if Vivian’s lawyer is competent, she’ll claim she hid Nora because she feared your family.”
“My family is dead.”
“Your mother isn’t here to contradict old accusations. Your father can’t defend himself. Vivian may build her defense on ghosts.”
I looked at Nora.
“Then we find the living.”
Peter frowned.
“Who?”
I thought of Claire Bell.
Of a woman who vanished.
May you like
Of a child who said her mother got sick.
“Claire,” I said. “We find Nora’s mother.”
