Chapter 7 - The Woman in the PhotographAdrian disappeared for two days.
He answered Clare's messages with one word.
Safe.
He did not answer Dominic at all.
Dominic pretended this did not hurt.
Clare pretended not to notice him pretending.
On Wednesday evening, Adrian finally returned.
He walked into the clinic ten minutes before closing.
His clothes were wrinkled.
He had not shaved.
Clare was completing patient notes.
“You look terrible.”
He dropped into the chair opposite her.
“Apparently that's how this family says hello.”
She closed the laptop.
“Where were you?”
“Milwaukee.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to be somewhere nobody knew my name.”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Hotel asked for identification.”
Clare smiled.
Adrian did not.
“I found Laura Mercer.”
Clare stopped.
“What?”
“Not her.”
He pulled out his phone.
“Records.”
Clare moved beside him.
Laura Mercer had been born in 1968.
Nursing assistant.
No marriage records.
No known children.
Her employment history ended abruptly twenty-nine years earlier.
Then nothing.
“That's not finding her.”
“I found this.”
Adrian opened an archived newspaper page.
A photograph showed several volunteers outside a women's shelter in Milwaukee.
The article was dated nineteen years earlier.
Clare enlarged the image.
A woman stood near the back.
Dark hair.
Thin face.
Perhaps fifty.
The caption listed her as Laura Mills.
Clare looked at Adrian.
“You think it's her?”
“I don't know.”
“Why?”
He swiped to another photograph.
An old image Helena had given him.
Laura Mercer at twenty-four.
Clare compared them.
The resemblance was strong.
Very strong.
“Where is Laura Mills now?”
“That's the problem.”
“What?”
“She disappeared again twelve years ago.”
Clare sat.
“Any death record?”
“No.”
“Social Security?”
“Nothing I could find.”
“You did all this yourself?”
“I hired someone.”
“Of course you did.”
Adrian looked at her.
“Don't tell Dominic yet.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Clare.”
“He has spent forty years acting like the emergency contact for the entire world.”
“Exactly.”
“That doesn't mean you get to punish him.”
“I'm not punishing him.”
“What are you doing?”
Adrian looked down.
“Trying to figure out who I am before he tells me.”
Clare softened.
“Dominic wouldn't do that.”
“He wouldn't mean to.”
That was true.
Clare sat beside him.
“Finding Laura won't tell you who you are.”
“It might tell me where I came from.”
“Those aren't the same thing.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Adrian's eyes filled.
“I look in the mirror and suddenly my face belongs to strangers.”
Clare said nothing.
“I spent my whole life thinking I had Mom's mouth.”
His voice cracked.
“Dominic used to tell me that.”
Clare remembered Helena saying Adrian looked like someone else.
“Now every memory feels edited.”
“No.”
Adrian looked at her.
“Your memories happened.”
“But what they meant—”
“Can change without becoming false.”
He looked away.
Clare continued.
“Rebecca held you when you were sick.”
“Yes.”
“She comforted you.”
“Yes.”
“She was the person you called Mom.”
“Yes.”
“Learning another woman gave birth to you doesn't erase that.”
Adrian wiped his face.
“You always know what to say?”
“No.”
“How do you know that was right?”
“I don't.”
He laughed softly.
“That's surprisingly reassuring.”
The door opened.
Dominic walked in.
He saw Adrian.
Stopped.
Neither brother moved.
Clare stood.
“I suddenly remember something extremely important in the supply closet.”
Adrian almost smiled.
She left.
For twenty minutes, she reorganized supplies that did not need reorganizing.
When she returned, the brothers were sitting opposite each other.
Neither looked happy.
But Adrian had not left.
Progress.
Dominic looked at Clare.
“He found Laura.”
“Possibly.”
Adrian raised an eyebrow.
“You told him?”
“No.”
“He did.”
Dominic looked annoyed.
“You are both terrible at secrets.”
Clare laughed.
The irony was impossible to ignore.
Three days later they drove to Milwaukee.
The women's shelter had moved locations, but one employee remembered Laura Mills.
Her name was Patricia Green.
“She volunteered here for years,” Patricia said.
“What was she like?” Adrian asked.
“Quiet.”
“Did she talk about family?”
“No.”
“Children?”
Patricia hesitated.
“Once.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“What did she say?”
“We were organizing donated clothes. Someone brought in baby things.”
Patricia looked at him.
“She started crying.”
Adrian's face tightened.
“She said she'd had a son.”
“Did she say his name?”
“No.”
“What happened to him?”
“She said she'd given him away.”
Adrian looked down.
Clare touched his shoulder.
He did not pull away.
“Why did Laura leave?” Dominic asked.
Patricia frowned.
“She became frightened.”
“Of what?”
“A man.”
Everyone looked at her.
“What man?”
“I never met him.”
“Name?”
“No.”
“Did she describe him?”
“Older. Wealthy. From Chicago.”
Victor.
Maybe.
“What happened?”
“One evening she found an envelope taped to her apartment door.”
Clare felt cold.
“What was inside?”
“A photograph.”
“Of?”
Patricia looked at Adrian.
“A young man.”
Adrian's face went pale.
“How young?”
“Maybe seventeen.”
Dominic stiffened.
Adrian would have been seventeen twelve years ago.
“What happened after that?” Clare asked.
“Laura left Milwaukee.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“She didn't tell anyone?”
“She told me one thing.”
Patricia looked at Adrian.
“She said she had already ruined her son's life once.”
Adrian swallowed.
“And she wouldn't do it again.”
Silence.
Clare looked at Dominic.
Victor had been dead ten years.
The photograph appeared twelve years ago.
Meaning Victor could have sent it.
But if Laura had been hiding from Victor for nearly two decades, how had he found her?
And why had he waited?
“Do you still have anything that belonged to her?” Clare asked.
Patricia thought.
“Maybe.”
She disappeared into a storage room.
Several minutes later, she returned with an old cardboard box.
Inside were volunteer badges, photographs, notebooks, and Christmas cards.
Patricia found one envelope.
“Laura left this behind.”
It contained a photograph.
Adrian took it.
The image showed the shelter volunteers.
On the back, Laura had written several names.
And a telephone number.
Chicago area code.
Dominic looked at it.
“I know this number.”
“Whose?” Clare asked.
“My father's old private office.”
Adrian stared at him.
“Laura called Dad?”
“Apparently.”
“When?”
Patricia looked at the date.
“About thirteen years ago.”
A year before Laura disappeared.
Clare felt the familiar movement of puzzle pieces.
“What if Laura wasn't hiding from Matteo?”
Dominic looked at her.
“What?”
“What if she contacted him?”
“Why?”
“Maybe she wanted help.”
Adrian looked at the photograph.
“Dad was already dead thirteen years ago.”
Everyone went quiet.
Matteo had died twenty-two years earlier.
So Laura could not have called him.
Dominic took the photograph again.
“That number was disconnected after Dad died.”
Patricia shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“I remember Laura calling it.”
“How?”
“She used the office phone.”
“And?”
“Someone answered.”
Dominic stared at her.
“That isn't possible.”
Patricia shrugged.
“I was standing beside her.”
Clare felt a chill.
“Did you hear the conversation?”
“Only Laura's side.”
“What did she say?”
Patricia thought.
“She said, ‘You promised Matteo you would leave him alone.’”
Adrian went still.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Patricia's expression changed.
“She said, ‘If you go near my son again, I'll tell Dominic everything.’”
Dominic stared at her.
Adrian whispered, “Someone was using Dad's office after he died.”
“Yes,” Clare said.
“But who?”
Dominic already knew.
His face told her.
“Victor.”
Adrian looked at him.
“Why would Victor use Dad's office?”
“Because after Dad died, Victor handled company records for six months.”
“Then he could have kept the number.”
“Yes.”
Clare looked at Adrian.
“And Laura knew exactly who was threatening her.”
Adrian sat back.
For the first time since learning the truth, fear replaced anger.
“If Victor found her once…”
“He's dead,” Dominic said.
“But someone shot me eighteen months ago.”
Silence.
They had never identified the shooter.
Police had treated it as an attempted robbery connected to Adrian's car.
The timing had always bothered Clare.
Adrian had been searching Matteo's records when he was shot.
Clare felt her stomach tighten.
“What if the shooting wasn't about your father's records?”
Adrian looked at her.
“What else would it be?”
“You.”
Dominic immediately shook his head.
“No.”
“Think about it.”
“Victor is dead.”
“Secrets don't die with the people who create them.”
Adrian looked between them.
“Someone knew I was searching.”
Clare nodded.
“Someone knew you had contacted Sarah about my mother's house.”
Dominic stood.
“We're going back to Chicago.”
“Why?”
“Because if someone is still protecting Victor's secret, we've been treating a living problem like a dead one.”
They returned after midnight.
Dominic insisted Clare stay at his apartment.
She argued for six minutes.
Then accepted because she was too tired to drive.
Adrian took the guest room.
Clare took the second.
At two in the morning, she found Dominic standing on the balcony.
Chicago stretched beneath them.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
She stood beside him.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Dominic said, “I keep thinking about Adrian at three.”
Clare waited.
“He followed me everywhere.”
A smile touched Dominic's face.
“I hated it.”
“No, you didn't.”
“No.”
He looked down at the city.
“I taught him to ride a bicycle.”
“Did he crash?”
“Into a parked car.”
Clare laughed.
“He blamed the car.”
“That sounds like Adrian.”
“He broke my nose when he was eight.”
“How?”
“Baseball.”
“Accident?”
“Depends who you ask.”
She smiled.
Dominic's expression became serious.
“None of that changed.”
“No.”
“I know that.”
“But?”
“But knowing something and feeling it aren't always synchronized.”
Clare looked at him.
“That might be the smartest thing you've ever said.”
“Don't tell Adrian.”
She smiled.
Then Dominic turned toward her.
“Clare.”
Something in his voice changed.
She knew before he moved.
Perhaps she had known for months.
He touched her face.
Slowly enough that she could step away.
She didn't.
His thumb rested against her cheek.
“We've spent a year pretending this isn't happening.”
Clare's heartbeat accelerated.
“Maybe nothing is happening.”
“You're a terrible liar.”
“So I've been told.”
He smiled.
Then kissed her.
There was no dramatic rush.
No cinematic explosion.
It was quieter than that.
Warmer.
More dangerous because it felt natural.
Clare kissed him back.
For several seconds, the rest of the world disappeared.
Then she pulled away.
Dominic immediately stepped back.
“Sorry.”
“Don't apologize.”
“You stopped.”
“I know.”
“Did I—”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“I just don't want this to happen because we're scared.”
His expression softened.
“It didn't.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I've wanted to do that for eleven months.”
Clare blinked.
“Eleven?”
“Approximately.”
“You counted?”
“No.”
“You definitely counted.”
He almost laughed.
Clare touched his hand.
“Ask me again when nobody is missing, threatened, shot, dying, or hiding a thirty-year-old secret.”
Dominic nodded.
“That's a very specific requirement.”
“With our families, apparently necessary.”
She went inside.
At the doorway she stopped.
“Dominic?”
“Yes?”
“I've wanted you to do it too.”
She disappeared before he could answer.
For the first time that night, Dominic smiled.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
No one spoke.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a distorted voice.
“You should have left Laura Mercer buried.”
The call ended.
Dominic stared at the screen.
Behind him, Clare had returned.
May you like
She had heard everything.
And neither of them slept for the rest of the night.
