Chapter 11
Catherine still held the torn strip of envelope paper when Daniel’s phone began vibrating against the study desk.
He glanced at the screen. His face tightened.
“Dad?” I asked.
“No.” He turned the phone facedown. “He sent it earlier.”
The house seemed to contract around us. Beyond the front windows, a camera waited on the walk, and Raymond’s opened envelope lay in my bag like a fresh wound.
“What did he send?” I asked.
Daniel rubbed his thumb along the phone’s dark screen. “A statement. He wanted me to sign it.”
Catherine lowered the strip of paper. “What statement?”
“That the report couldn’t be trusted. That I’d seen it before and believed it was unreliable.” Daniel swallowed. “That you were trying to punish him.”
The words were smooth enough to sound prepared. I pictured Richard’s hand on Daniel’s shoulder, the familiar family pressure dressed up as a reasonable request.
“And you were going to sign?” I asked.
“I almost did.”
I didn’t look away from him. “Would you have let wounded patients carry the blame?”
His gaze dropped to the desk. His jaw moved once, but he couldn’t make himself answer.
The silence between us was not an apology. It was the first honest thing he’d given me.
My phone buzzed. Malik’s name appeared.
“I’m coming to you,” he said when I answered. “I have the clinic footage. I’m not sending it over a phone.”
“You said there were men outside.”
“There are. I’m not going out the front.”
I looked at the open study door, the scattered papers, the camera beyond the window. “Where are you going?”
“Raymond’s garage. The side alley. Give me ten minutes.”
Then the call ended.
Daniel picked up the phone he’d turned facedown. “I can take the statement apart. Show you what he sent.”
“Keep it. Don’t forward anything yet.”
“Evelyn—”
“I said keep it.”
He nodded, not arguing. This time, the choice not to speak felt different.
We moved the remaining originals into my bag and crossed the house without touching the front windows. The garage smelled of old oil, damp cardboard, and the faint cedar scent of Raymond’s fishing gear. A bare bulb swung slightly overhead, though no one had touched it.
Malik arrived through the side door with rain shining on his jacket. He held his phone in one hand and a small flash drive in the other.
“I copied the clip before I left,” he said. “The men were there before I arrived. One watched the entrance. The other watched the parking lot.”
He played the recording. The clinic’s fixed camera showed Malik’s car pulling in. Across the street, a dark sedan sat at the curb. One man got out and turned toward the clinic. The footage didn’t reveal a license plate or a clear face—just a figure standing in the rain, watching the door Malik had entered.
“That could be anybody,” Daniel said.
“Maybe,” Malik replied. “But he was there before I was.”
A sound came from outside: tires rolling slowly over gravel.
We all turned toward the garage opening.
Catherine moved to the narrow window beside the door. She looked through a gap in the curtain, then backed away.
“Car at the alley entrance.”
Malik slipped the flash drive into his pocket. “Same one?”
“I can’t tell.”
The engine idled. A door opened, then shut.
I lowered the garage door switch. The old motor groaned, dragging the metal panels down inch by inch.
“Get in Catherine’s car,” I said. “Now.”
Daniel gathered the folder of photographs. Malik took the smaller envelope of copies. Catherine clutched her purse against her chest, and I shoved Raymond’s original report into my bag, under the letters.
A shadow moved across the narrowing strip of daylight.
The garage door shuddered, then stopped halfway.
“Power?” Daniel asked.
“Could be,” Malik said.
A hand appeared beneath the door, fingers pressing against the lower panel.
“Back door,” I said.
We ran for the side exit. Catherine went first, followed by Malik. Daniel held the door as I pushed through, my bag catching on a protruding hinge. The strap snapped free. Behind us, the garage door slammed upward with a metallic crash.
I spun around. My bag had hit the concrete. Papers slid from its open top, skittering toward the alley.
The original report slipped beneath a parked sedan.
“Leave it,” Daniel shouted. “We have photographs.”
I could see the envelope’s pale edge under the car. The original carried dates and routing marks that the photographs could not fully preserve.
Daniel was already moving.
“Daniel!”
He dropped flat onto the wet pavement and reached beneath the sedan. From the alley came the slap of running shoes.
He stretched farther. His shoulder scraped the pavement. One of the men rounded the corner, closing on the garage.
Daniel’s fingertips caught the envelope.
He dragged it free and scrambled up as the man lunged. Malik stepped between them, forcing the stranger to veer around him. Daniel shoved the report into his jacket and ran.
Catherine had the driver’s door open. We piled into the car, doors slamming, breathless and tangled with bags and elbows. She pulled out hard enough to send my shoulder against the window.
In the side mirror, the dark sedan turned into the alley behind us.
“They’re following,” Malik said.
Catherine took the next corner. The sedan followed.
Daniel held the original report against his chest, his knuckles white around the paper. I watched his face in the passing streetlights. He had risked himself to bring it back, but the years between us hadn’t disappeared with the gesture.
“Don’t mistake this for forgiveness,” I said.
“I don’t.” He looked down at the envelope. “I’m trying to stop making it worse.”
The sedan surged closer behind us.
Catherine gripped the wheel. “Where do you want me to go?”
I glanced back. Headlights filled the rear window, close enough to bleach the inside of the car white.
May you like
“Keep moving,” I said.
Then the sedan struck our rear bumper.
