Chapter 5: Someone Was Already Asking Questions
"Who's asking questions about Garrett?" I said.
"He didn't know.
Or he said he didn't." Marcus turned the photograph over in his hands.
"He was rattled.
Garrett doesn't rattle easily."
"What kind of questions?"
"About the original settlement.
Whether there were other incidents.
Whether the family had used the same lawyer for other cases." He paused.
"Someone has been pulling court records."
I was quiet.
"Was it you?" he asked.
"No."
He studied my face.
"But you're not surprised."
"I'm not surprised," I said carefully, "because I'm not the only person that accident affected."
Marcus waited.
"There was another car," I said.
"A woman named Patricia Osei.
She was driving behind us.
She swerved to avoid the collision and went into a barrier.
Her daughter was in the backseat.
The little girl was eight years old." I kept my voice even.
"Patricia lost the use of her left hand.
Her daughter had a spinal injury.
She walked again eventually, but it took four years."
Marcus closed his eyes briefly.
"The settlement covered my medical costs," I said.
"Patricia's family received almost nothing.
The lawyer argued comparative fault.
She'd been driving slightly over the speed limit." I picked up my coffee.
"Slightly."
"I didn't know about them," Marcus said.
"Most people didn't.
It wasn't in the main coverage." I set the cup down.
"Patricia's daughter is thirty-eight now.
Her name is Renata.
She's a paralegal."
Marcus looked up slowly.
"She's been pulling the court records," I said.
He sat back in his chair.
The photograph stayed on the table between us.
"How long have you known her?" he asked.
"Three years.
We met at a rehabilitation advocacy conference.
She didn't know who I was at first — that I'd been in the same accident.
When she found out, she cried for about twenty minutes and then asked me if I wanted to get lunch." I almost smiled.
"We've had lunch every month since."
"Does she know about Garrett?
That you found him?"
"Not yet.
I was going to tell her this week."
Marcus was quiet for a moment.
Outside, the grey morning had softened slightly.
A thin strip of pale light crossed the table between us.
"What does Renata want?" he asked.
"She wants an acknowledgment," I said.
"Not money.
Not a lawsuit.
She wants Garrett to say, out loud, to her face, that he knows what he did and what it cost her family." I paused.
"She's been carrying this for thirty years.
She just wants him to say he knows."
"He won't," Marcus said.
It wasn't cruel.
It was just certain.
"I know."
"So what are you going to do?"
I looked at him across the table.
At the signed papers still sitting beside his coffee cup.
At the man who had pressed his last coins into a vending machine for a stranger and written four careful lines on an index card rather than stay silent.
"I'm going to give Renata something better than an acknowledgment," I said.
"What's better than that?"
"Proof," I said.
"That she was never at fault.
That the comparative fault argument was constructed.
That the lawyer knew the speed calculation was wrong and filed it anyway." I kept my eyes on his.
"I've had a legal team working on it for eight months."
Marcus was very still.
"The original case can't be reopened," I said.
"The statute of limitations is long gone.
But professional misconduct has a different clock.
And the lawyer who handled it is still practicing."
Something shifted in Marcus's expression.
The tightness around his eyes eased slightly, replaced by something more complicated.
"You've been planning this," he said.
"For a while, yes."
"And then I walked into your cafe."
"And then you walked into my cafe."
He looked down at the photograph again.
Then he picked it up and put it back in his pocket.
"What do you need from me?" he asked.
"Nothing you're not willing to give."
"That's not an answer."
"No," I agreed.
"It isn't." I folded my hands on the table.
"Garrett told your stepfather's lawyer things.
Private things, about the night of the accident.
Details that were never in the official report.
Things that would change the picture significantly if they were ever spoken by someone who was actually there."
Marcus was quiet for a long time.
The coffee machine behind the counter went silent.
The cafe emptied slightly around us.
"You're asking me to testify," he said.
"I'm asking you to think about it."
He nodded slowly.
Once.
The kind of nod that means a person has already started thinking and knows it.
"I'll need to talk to Renata first," I said.
"She deserves to know all of this before it moves any further." I stood and picked up my bag.
"Can you come back tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Bring anything you remember about that night.
Anything Garrett told you.
Anything you saw or heard." I paused.
"Even if you think it's small."
He nodded again.
I was almost at the door when his voice came from behind me.
"Diane."
I turned.
"Does Renata know you found me?"
"Not yet," I said.
"But she's going to want to meet you."
I pushed the door open.
The cold air came in sharp and clean.
Behind me, I heard Marcus say quietly — not to me, just to the room —
"I should have looked for you both a long time ago."
I let the door close without answering.
Some things don't need a response.
They just need to be said.
But on the bus home, I took out my phone and typed a message to Renata.
*Can you meet me tomorrow morning?
There's someone I need you to meet.
Bring the file.*
Her reply came in under a minute.
*Which file?*
I looked out the window at the grey city moving past.
*All of them,* I typed back.
Three dots appeared.
Then stopped.
Then appeared again.
Then her message came through, and my chest went tight in a way it hadn't in years.
May you like
*Diane.
Did you find him?*
