The Man Who Knew the Address
Chapter 04 - The Man Who Knew the Address
Grant arrived at the apartment twenty minutes later.
No one had given him the address.
He stood in the doorway wearing the same gray coat Hope had described. His eyes moved from me to the hospital bracelet and then to the child hiding behind Walter.
“You should not be here,” he said.
Officer Ruiz rose.
“How did you find this apartment?”
Grant barely looked at him.
“My wife’s phone has family security enabled.”
“My phone is turned off,” I said.
“You were seen entering the building.”
“By whom?”
“Our driver.”
“I dismissed the driver outside the precinct.”
For the first time, Grant’s polished expression slipped.
Only for a second.
He stepped into the room and reached for the plastic bag.
Officer Ruiz blocked him.
“This is potential evidence.”
“Evidence of what?” Grant snapped. “A mentally ill woman abducted our child eight years ago and spent years creating false documents.”
Hope made a frightened sound.
Grant looked at her.
His expression softened too deliberately.
“I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this.”
“You told Aunt Claire to leave,” Hope said.
“I’ve never met your aunt.”
“You broke the blue cup.”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
There was a chipped blue mug on the kitchen counter.
I picked it up. A crack ran from the rim to the handle.
Hope pointed toward the wall.
“He threw it when Aunt Claire said she was going to tell Nora everything.”
Grant turned to me.
“You are going to believe a frightened child over your husband?”
“I believed you for eight years.”
“And I protected you for all eight.”
“From what?”
He stepped closer.
“From becoming the kind of woman who spends her life chasing ghosts.”
The words chilled me.
Not because they were cruel.
Because they sounded rehearsed.
Officer Ruiz received a call from dispatch. An unidentified woman matching Claire’s description had been admitted to a public hospital three nights earlier.
She had been found unconscious outside a subway station.
Grant’s hand moved toward his coat pocket.
Hope saw it and screamed.
“No! He took Aunt Claire’s phone!”
Officer Ruiz ordered Grant to keep his hands visible.
Grant slowly removed a phone from his pocket.
It was not his usual phone.
The case was cracked, and a small faded flower had been painted near the camera.
Hope began sobbing.
“That’s hers.”
Grant stared at the device as though it had somehow betrayed him.
Then he looked at me.
“I can explain.”
For the first time in twenty-two years of marriage, I did not want his explanation.
May you like
I wanted the truth.
And I was beginning to understand that they were not the same thing.
