Chapter 5: What the Nurse Remembered
The detective's name was Paulson.
I had his number because he had handled a break-in at my house three years ago and I had never deleted the contact.
It was the only reason I called him instead of a general line.
I needed a name, not a queue.
He picked up on the third ring.
"This is Claire Holt.
You won't remember me—"
"The Drayfield Road break-in.
I remember." His voice was alert in the way of someone used to late calls.
"What's happened?"
I told him.
Not everything — not the birth certificate, not Catherine, not the thirty years of questions.
I told him about the nurse's statement.
I told him about Gerald being alone with Frank.
I told him that Frank had deteriorated sharply afterward and that I needed someone to tell me whether any of this was worth reporting or whether I was a grieving daughter falling apart at midnight.
Paulson was quiet for a moment.
"Is your father still living?"
"I don't know." My throat tightened.
"I left the hospital to come here.
I haven't called back yet."
"Call the hospital.
Right now.
Then call me back."
I called the hospital.
The nurse on Frank's ward answered on the second ring.
I gave my name.
There was a pause — the kind of pause that has a shape — and then she said she was sorry.
Frank had passed forty-five minutes ago.
I sat with that for a moment.
Miriam had come to stand in the doorway between the hall and the living room.
She read my face before I said anything.
Her hand went to the doorframe.
"He's gone," I said.
She nodded once.
Her eyes closed.
I called Paulson back.
"He's gone," I said again.
"My father just passed."
"I'm sorry." A beat.
"Claire, I need you to listen to me carefully.
Don't contact Gerald Marsh tonight.
Don't call him, don't text him, don't let him know where you are.
Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"The nurse's statement — do you have the original document with you?"
"It's in my hands."
"Don't let it out of your sight.
I'm going to make a call in the morning to someone I know in the county medical examiner's office.
If there's anything to find, we find it properly.
That means you don't move first."
"He was at the hospital last week," I said.
"He was alone with Frank."
"I heard you." His voice was careful.
"One step at a time.
Can you stay where you are tonight?"
I looked at Miriam.
She was still in the doorway, watching me with Frank's dark eyes.
"Yes," I said.
"I can stay here."
I put the phone down.
Miriam came and sat beside me on the sofa — not across from me, beside me — and for a while neither of us spoke.
The photographs on the wall looked back at us.
Frank young and smiling.
Frank holding a small girl up toward the camera.
Frank looking at the little girl the way people look at things they are afraid of losing.
"Did he know?" I finally asked.
"When he sent me here tonight — did he know he wasn't going to make it through?"
"Yes," Miriam said.
"I think he did."
"Then why didn't he just tell me himself?
In the room, before—"
"Because Gerald was coming back." She said it quietly, like a fact she had been carrying for hours.
"Gerald called the hospital that afternoon.
Frank heard the nurse confirm he was on his way.
That's why Frank sent you out.
He needed you gone before Gerald arrived.
He needed you safe and moving toward the truth before Gerald could get to you first."
The last words Frank had ever said to me.
*Go there.
Now.*
Not a dying man's confusion.
A warning.
My phone lit up on the cushion beside me.
A text from Gerald: *Heard the news about Frank.
So sorry, sweetheart.
May you like
Let me know if you need anything.
I can come to you.*
