Chapter 20: Third Night

Rafe's POV

The detective left the suite at eight that night with a statement and a copy of the payment order.

The bank's fraud desk said the receiving account sat at a small bank in Kettering.

It would not open until eight in the morning.

A recall could not be filed before then, and nobody could tell me what the account would hold by then.

So there was nothing left to do.

I had forgotten what it was like to have nothing left to do.

Claire stood at the sideboard with her back to me.

The baby monitor sat at her elbow, next to a mug she was not drinking from.

I had my briefcase open on the table, because I had been looking for the police report.

She turned around.

"What's in the envelope?" she said.

I looked down.

Eleven envelopes, rubber-banded, soft at the corners from six years of being carried.

I had forgotten they were in there.

"Those are the letters," I said.

"The ones you didn't send."

"I carried them to every office I ever worked in. I told myself I'd burn them when you turned thirty."

"You didn't."

"No."

She crossed the room and took the top envelope from my hand.

She opened it, and I did not stop her.

She read it standing, under the lamp, with her lips pressed together.

I knew it by heart.

It was the first one, dated a month after her mother's funeral.

It said that someone had been told to watch over her, and that he was sorry he could not do it in person.

It said, I'll be here when you're ready.

She folded it along the old crease and put it down on the table.

Her eyes were bright and she did not blink.

"Eleven," she said.

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