Chapter 4 — Come Without Vane

I wrote the four letters beneath the drawing.

VANE.

Jericho read the completed instruction.

“Come without Vane.”

“Yes.”

His hand closed around the edge of the table.

The other pages lay between us.

Glass room.

Under fish.

Number nineteen.

I checked the last drawing against the key again. There was no other reading.

“The old oceanarium,” Jericho said.

I looked up.

“You know it?”

“My company bought the property six years ago. The main building closed after a hurricane. There’s a viewing room beneath the largest tank.”

“A glass room.”

He was already reaching for his phone.

I caught his wrist.

“Before you call anyone, we need to know who can hear us.”

He looked at my hand, then at the dark doorway.

For a second, neither of us moved.

Then he turned his phone face down.

“Mateo,” he said. “Only Mateo.”

“Does Vane know about the oceanarium?”

“He treated Celeste before he started seeing Rosie.”

That was new.

I released his wrist.

“For what?”

“Anxiety. Sleep problems. She recommended him for Rosie after a difficult school year.”

“And after the explosion, you kept him.”

“He knew her history.”

Jericho said it without defending the decision.

I gathered the drawings.

“We keep the originals somewhere he can’t reach. We don’t question Rosie in front of anyone who might report back to him.”

“He won’t be seeing her again.”

“Good. But don’t announce why.”

Mateo arrived in the kitchen wearing the same clothes he had worn earlier. He looked as though he hadn’t slept either.

Jericho showed him the translation.

“Verify the property,” he said. “Don’t send anyone inside yet. Find Vane. Quietly.”

Mateo photographed the pages.

“His next appointment here is Friday.”

“Cancel nothing.”

I looked at Jericho.

He met my gaze.

“If he thinks we’re waiting for Friday, we have time.”

Rosie was awake when I returned upstairs.

Mrs. Alden sat beside her bed, reading from a book Rosie wasn’t listening to.

The child watched the door.

“Did you fix the rabbits?”

“I understood some of them.”

Mrs. Alden closed the book.

“Shall I fetch something warm?”

“Please,” I said.

When she left, Rosie pulled the blanket toward her chin.

“Is Daddy angry?”

“He’s worried.”

“That’s worse.”

I sat on the edge of the mattress.

“You don’t have to tell me anything tonight. But I need you to know you’re not in trouble.”

Her eyes filled.

“Even if I didn’t tell?”

“Even then.”

She looked at the doorway.

I glanced back.

Jericho stood outside the room. I held up one hand, asking him to wait.

He did.

Rosie twisted the blanket.

“I thought if I didn’t say it, nobody would get hurt.”

“Did someone tell you that?”

She nodded.

“Was it Dr. Vane?”

Her breathing changed.

I stopped.

“Rosie, look at me.”

She did.

“We don’t need a name right now.”

“What if he finds out?”

“You can sit with me while your father makes the house safer.”

“That didn’t work before.”

I couldn’t tell her she was wrong.

Instead, I said, “Then we’ll do something different.”

Jericho entered slowly and crouched beside the bed.

“I should have listened when you didn’t want to go to your appointments.”

Rosie stared at him.

“You thought I was being difficult.”

“I thought the appointments were helping. I was wrong.”

Her mouth trembled.

“She said you would die.”

I felt Jericho go still beside me.

He kept his voice steady.

“Who said that, sweetheart?”

Rosie pressed both hands over her face.

I touched his forearm.

Enough.

He understood.

“You don’t have to answer,” he said. “Not tonight.”

She reached for him, and he gathered her into his arms.

I stayed until she fell asleep against his chest.

At eight the next morning, Mateo called us into the office.

Vane’s clinic occupied two rooms above a private pharmacy. The receptionist had arrived to find his desk cleared and his appointment book missing.

“He left the building at six fourteen yesterday,” Mateo said. “A service camera caught him carrying two cases.”

“That was before the note was found,” I said.

“Yes.”

“His apartment?”

“Empty.”

Jericho stood behind his desk.

“Find the vehicle.”

“We’re tracing it.”

Mateo placed a tablet in front of me.

Vane’s professional biography filled the screen.

The university. The training hospital. The years of experience.

Several entries had been highlighted.

“The institutions we contacted can’t confirm the qualifications he claimed,” Mateo said. “The license number on his clinic paperwork belongs to someone else.”

“How long has he been using it?”

“At least three years.”

Three years of being welcomed into this house.

Three years of speaking to Rosie without anyone else in the room.

I looked toward the closed door.

“Where is she?”

“With Mrs. Alden in the schoolroom,” Jericho said. “Two guards outside.”

Mateo put a sealed plastic sleeve on the desk.

Inside was a photograph.

I recognized the laundromat before I recognized myself.

My hair was tied up. I was carrying a basket against my hip.

“How old is this?”

“The date on the back is four years ago.”

He added another.

Me at a bus stop.

Another.

Me leaving my second job.

Then one taken through my apartment window.

I pushed my chair back.

Jericho came around the desk.

“Lennox.”

“Don’t.”

He stopped.

Mateo’s voice was careful.

“There was a locked cabinet in the clinic. These were inside it.”

I looked at the photograph through my window.

I remembered that shirt.

The broken fan beside my bed.

The summer I had worked evenings because the restaurant paid an extra dollar an hour after ten.

Someone had watched me sleep.

“How many?”

“Sixty-three printed photographs. We’re checking the storage devices.”

I stood and walked to the window.

The bay was bright beyond the lawn. A gardener was trimming a hedge.

Ordinary things.

For five years, I had built a life out of ordinary things because I believed nobody was looking.

Behind me, Jericho said, “You were under surveillance before you met Rosie.”

“I can see that.”

“The restaurant wasn’t how he found you.”

“I can see that too.”

My voice cracked on the last word.

I hated it.

I pressed my palms against the cool windowsill.

Jericho approached but didn’t touch me.

“What do you need?”

The question made me turn.

Not an order.

Not a promise he couldn’t keep.

A question.

“I need the dates in order. Every photograph. Every receipt. Anything that shows who paid for this.”

Mateo nodded.

“I’ll have copies prepared.”

“And my apartment.”

“We can secure it.”

“I want my belongings brought here. The documents are mine to open.”

Jericho inclined his head.

“Agreed.”

There was a knock.

Mrs. Alden stood outside with Rosie beside her.

“She wanted to check on you.”

Rosie held a fresh sheet of paper.

I crouched, making certain the photographs were behind me.

“What have you got?”

“A rabbit with armor.”

The animal wore a crooked helmet and carried a shield larger than its body.

“It’s for you,” she said.

I took it.

“Does the armor work?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She put her arms around my neck.

I held her a little longer than I should have.

Over her shoulder, I looked at Jericho.

He was watching us with an expression I hadn’t seen before.

I waited until Mrs. Alden had led Rosie away before speaking.

“If Vane knew where I was all this time, why didn’t he come for me?”

Mateo glanced at Jericho.

Nobody answered.

I picked up the oldest photograph.

I had been running.

They had been waiting.