Chapter 5: The Thing She Left Behind
The ambulance took Lucy first.
Jack refused to let go of her hand until the paramedic told him, gently but firmly, that he had to wait outside.
Mark stood with him on the pavement while the restaurant's rear door swung shut behind the stretcher.
Jack stared at the door.
"She's going to be okay," Mark said.
"You don't know that."
Mark didn't argue.
He put his hand on his son's shoulder and left it there.
A detective arrived twenty minutes later — a woman named Reyes, compact and unhurried, with a notepad she barely used.
She spoke to Mark first, then to Jack, then asked if she could see inside the freezer.
Mark led her in.
She stood at the open door for a long time without speaking.
She looked at the coat still folded on the floor.
The empty water bottles stacked in the corner.
The small camp light, its battery long dead, lying on its side.
"How often did she come in?" Reyes asked.
"I don't know."
"Did you ever notice the padlock?"
Mark was quiet.
"The restaurant is yours," Reyes said.
It wasn't a question.
"She told me tonight.
I didn't know."
"When did you last come into this kitchen?"
"I don't work here.
It was Diane's business.
I thought it was Diane's business." He looked at the freezer.
"She put it in my name six months ago.
I don't know why."
Reyes wrote something down.
"I do," she said.
She explained it without looking up from her notepad.
If the restaurant was in Mark's name, any investigation into the business would start with him.
Any financial irregularity.
Any liability.
Diane had built herself a wall and put his name on it.
Mark sat down on a crate near the prep table.
"She planned all of this," he said.
"It looks that way."
"For how long?"
Reyes looked up.
"We'll need to go through the records.
But the property transfer on your house — the notarization date — that was eight months ago.
A month before your ex-wife disappeared."
One month before.
Mark put his face in his hands.
In the waiting room of the hospital across town, Jack sat in a plastic chair with his hands folded in his lap.
A nurse had brought him a cup of hot chocolate he hadn't touched.
Mr.
Okafor had arrived twenty minutes after the ambulance — he'd driven himself, still in the shirt he'd been wearing when Jack called — and sat beside him now, saying nothing useful, which was exactly right.
"She looked thin," Jack said.
"She did," Mr.
Okafor said.
"She kept touching my face.
Like she was checking I was real."
"That makes sense."
Jack picked up the hot chocolate.
Set it back down.
"My dad put her in his name.
The restaurant."
"I heard."
"He didn't know."
"I believe that."
"Diane knew he wouldn't check.
He trusted her." Jack looked at the floor.
"She knew exactly what she was doing."
Mr.
Okafor didn't fill the silence.
He let it sit.
A doctor came through the double doors.
She was young, with tired eyes, and she looked at Jack first before she looked at anyone else.
"She's stable," the doctor said.
"Malnourished, some frostbite on her fingers, but nothing permanent.
She's asking for her son."
Jack stood up so fast the chair scraped back.
"Room 14," the doctor said.
"Down the hall, turn left."
He was already moving.
Mr.
Okafor stayed seated.
He looked down at the untouched hot chocolate on the chair beside him.
His phone buzzed.
A message from Detective Reyes, whose number he'd passed on to Mark an hour ago.
*They found a second location.
Storage unit registered under a shell company.
Documents inside.
This goes further than the house.*
He read it twice.
Then he stood, walked to the corridor, and called Mark.
The phone rang four times before Mark picked up.
May you like
"There's more," Mr.
Okafor said.
