Chapter 7: What Morning Brought
Claire arrived at 6:40 a.m.
with a carry-on bag and red eyes and she held Noah for a long time without saying anything.
He let her.
He was still half-asleep and he pressed his face into her shoulder the way he used to when he was much smaller.
"Hi, Mom," he said into her jacket.
"Hi, baby," she said.
She looked at me over his head.
I shook my head slightly — not yet.
Detective Reyes came at eight.
She brought a colleague, a man she introduced as Agent Kowalski, federal.
He had a quiet manner and a leather folder and he sat at the small table by the window and let Reyes lead.
Claire sat beside me.
Noah was in the bathroom brushing his teeth.
"The little girl," I said before Reyes could begin.
"Her name is Maya.
She's eight years old." Reyes set a photograph on the table.
A small girl with dark braids and a yellow shirt, photographed from a hotel corridor camera.
"She was reported missing from a town in Ohio fourteen days ago.
Her mother has been contacted.
She's flying in this morning."
Claire put her hand over her mouth.
"She was with Vera Holst for two weeks?" I said.
"We believe so.
Maya is with child protective services right now.
She's physically unharmed." Reyes paused.
"She's frightened.
But she's safe."
The bathroom door opened and Noah came out, drying his hands on his jeans.
He looked at the table.
At the folder.
At the two people he hadn't seen before.
"Is it about the man from the pool?"
"Yes," Reyes said.
He pulled out a chair and sat down like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Okay," he said.
"What do you need to know?"
Claire made a small sound beside me.
I reached over and took her hand.
Reyes walked Noah through it one more time, carefully, with Kowalski taking notes.
Noah answered every question without hesitation.
He remembered details I hadn't known he'd noticed — the color of Marsh's shoes, tan leather.
The direction he'd walked after leaving Noah at the chairs, toward the side exit, not the lobby.
The fact that Marsh had checked his watch — his actual watch, on his wrist — before telling Noah he'd lost one.
Kowalski looked up from his notes.
"He checked his watch while telling you he'd lost his watch?"
"Yeah," Noah said.
"I thought it was weird.
But I thought maybe he had two."
Kowalski wrote something and underlined it.
After the questions were done, Reyes closed her folder.
"Noah," she said.
"What you remembered about the side exit — that confirmed something we were trying to establish about how Marsh left the scene.
That detail matters."
Noah nodded slowly.
"Did you catch him because of me?"
"We caught him faster because of you."
May you like
He thought about that.
"Good," he said.
