Chapter 8: Daniel
I showed Grace the message the next morning.
She read it twice.
"Have you responded?"
"No."
"Good.
Don't.
Not yet." She set my phone on the desk between us.
"He could be genuine.
He could be a play from Sandra's side — get you talking to him directly, see what you reveal, use it to build their case.
We need to know which one before you say a word to him."
"How do we find out?"
"I make a call." She picked up her own phone.
"Give me until this afternoon."
I left the deed documents with her and went back to Marcus's house.
Lily was in the garden with Donna, drawing on the paving stones with chalk.
She had drawn a house with four windows and a door.
Two figures outside it.
One tall, one small.
She looked up when I came through the gate.
"Daddy.
I made our house."
I crouched down beside her.
"I see that."
She pointed to the smaller figure.
"That's me." She pointed to the taller one.
"That's you." She looked at the drawing for a moment.
"I didn't put Mommy."
I didn't say anything.
"Is that okay?" she asked.
"It's your drawing, sweetheart.
You can put whoever you want."
She thought about it.
Then she picked up the chalk and drew a small figure off to the side, separate from the house.
"That's Mommy," she said.
"She's far away."
She said it the way children say things — plainly, without drama, the way they describe the world exactly as they see it.
I stayed crouched beside her for a long time.
Grace called at two o'clock.
"Daniel Reyes," she said.
"Thirty-eight.
He works in procurement at the same company as Renata.
She didn't just introduce him to Sandra — they've worked together for four years.
He's been in that house since before the cameras caught him."
"How far before?"
"Based on what he told my contact — and he was willing to talk, which is interesting — closer to fourteen months.
Not eight."
Sandra had told me eight.
"There's more," Grace said.
"Renata told Daniel that Sandra's marriage was essentially over.
That you were separated in all but name.
That Sandra was alone and needed support.
He says he didn't know the full picture until recently."
"Do you believe him?"
"I believe he's scared and wants to distance himself from whatever Renata built.
Whether he's telling the truth about what he knew and when — that's harder to say." A pause.
"But here's what matters.
He says Renata asked him to sign something.
A character reference.
Describing you as an absent, uninvolved father.
Dated two months ago."
I stood up from the garden chair.
"She was building a file."
"She was building a file," Grace confirmed.
"He says he didn't sign it.
He says she asked twice and he refused both times.
He's willing to provide a statement to that effect."
"Why?"
"Because Renata told him last week that if this went to court, she would tell Sandra that Daniel had been the one pushing the relationship.
That he had pursued Sandra against her better judgment.
She was already preparing to make him the villain if she needed one."
The garden was quiet.
Lily was still drawing.
Another figure now, smaller than the others.
"She was going to sacrifice him," I said.
"The moment he became inconvenient.
Yes."
"And now he wants to talk."
"Now he wants to talk." Grace's voice was measured.
"I'm not saying trust him.
I'm saying he has information we can use, and he has his own reasons to give it.
Those two things can both be true."
I watched Lily add a sun to her drawing.
Large, with long lines coming off it.
"Set up the meeting," I said.
"I'll be present.
You say nothing unless I indicate otherwise."
"Understood."
"One more thing." Grace paused.
"Clifford Marsh withdrew from Sandra's case this morning."
I frowned.
"Why?"
"He didn't say.
But lawyers don't withdraw from paying cases without a reason." Another pause.
"I think Renata told him something about the deed situation that made him uncomfortable.
Or he found out on his own.
Either way, Sandra is currently without representation."
"How does that affect the Friday motion?"
"It delays it.
Gives us more time." Grace's voice was calm but I could hear the precision underneath it.
"This is moving in our direction.
Don't do anything to change that."
I said I wouldn't.
I went back inside and sat at Marcus's kitchen table and thought about a woman who had spent over a year arranging people like pieces — her daughter, a man she worked with, her own grandchild — toward an outcome she had decided on before any of them understood the game.
May you like
And I thought about a three-year-old drawing her mother far away from the house.
Already, at three, understanding something she shouldn't have had to understand at all.
