Chapter 9 - THE PRICE OF A NAME
Rachel moved between Caroline and the detectives.
“She’s receiving medical treatment. You can schedule an interview through me.”
“We only need—”
“Through me.”
The detective glanced at Ruiz.
Ruiz didn’t rescue him.
After they left, Caroline pushed her blanket aside.
“I need to go.”
Daniel stood.
“You can barely walk.”
“He’s doing it again.”
“Caroline—”
“First the papers. Then the police. Then someone decides I’m unfit, and Noah disappears behind a door I’m not allowed to open.”
Noah’s face went pale.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“Nobody is taking him.”
“You can’t promise that.”
She was right.
The admission hurt more than any accusation.
“No,” he said. “I can promise he won’t face it alone.”
Rachel sat beside the bed.
“Victor wants you frightened enough to run. If you disappear now, he gets to call it guilt.”
Caroline stared at her.
“So I just stay here?”
“You stay. You get well. You let me be the person who says no for a while.”
That finally broke her.
She covered her face and cried without making a sound.
Noah climbed carefully onto the bed.
Daniel stepped back to give them room.
Later, a nurse helped collect samples for a paternity test that Daniel and Caroline had both agreed to.
Noah watched the swab disappear into its container.
“Does that decide whether you want me?”
Daniel crouched so fast his knee hit the chair.
“No.”
The boy’s eyes shone.
“Then what’s it for?”
“So nobody can use a question about us to hurt you.”
“What if it says no?”
Daniel looked at him.
“Then you’re still a kid who came to me for help. I’m still helping.”
Noah nodded once.
That evening, the envelope from the apartment arrived.
Inside were copied ledgers, Caroline’s handwritten dates, and a business card.
On the back, someone had written a phone number.
Caroline touched it.
“A nurse. She helped me leave Harbor.”
“Her name?” Ruiz asked.
“Joan Bell.”
Rachel began searching.
Daniel turned over the final page in the envelope.
It was an old repair estimate for the family car.
At the bottom, beneath a note about brake service, was a handwritten authorization.
May you like
Victor’s signature.
Dated two days before the crash.
