Chapter 3 - The Man Laura Feared
Chapter 3 - The Man Laura Feared
Laura looked smaller than Daniel remembered.
Machines surrounded her bed.
A bandage covered part of her forehead, and bruising darkened one side of her face.
Evan was allowed in for five minutes.
Daniel stayed outside.
He watched through the glass as the boy stood beside his mother and held her hand.
Ray stood at the other end of the hall, speaking angrily into his phone.
Daniel could not hear the words.
He did not need to.
When Evan came out, his face was pale.
"She didn't wake up."
Daniel put a hand on his shoulder, then stopped himself halfway.
He barely knew the boy.
Evan noticed.
After a moment, he stepped closer anyway.
Daniel rested his hand lightly on his shoulder.
The hospital social worker, a woman named Marisol Vega, met with Evan, Ray and Daniel separately.
Daniel told her everything.
The photograph.
The damaged headlight.
Laura's letter.
He did not exaggerate.
He did not accuse Ray.
He simply gave Marisol the envelope.
She read it.
"Do you know why she would be afraid of him?"
"I knew him years ago," Daniel said.
"How well?"
"Enough to dislike him."
"That isn't the same as danger."
"I know."
"Anything concrete?"
Daniel thought back.
Twelve years earlier, Ray had been the kind of man who always seemed to know things that were not his business.
Laura had worked in accounting for a regional construction supplier.
Ray had worked there too, first in purchasing and later in operations.
Laura had complained that Ray borrowed money, lied about expenses and used family pressure whenever she challenged him.
Daniel had thought it was ordinary family conflict.
Then, abruptly, Laura had quit her job.
Within weeks, she left Cleveland.
Daniel had tried calling.
Her number changed.
Emails went unanswered.
He had sent one letter to an address she once used in Akron.
It came back unopened.
After several months, he stopped.
He had been forty-six then.
Divorced.
Working seventy-hour weeks.
He had told himself that adults sometimes ended relationships badly.
He had not been proud of it, but eventually he accepted it.
Now he wondered what he had accepted too easily.
"I don't have proof of anything," he told Marisol. "Only the fact that Laura specifically warned me."
Marisol nodded.
"That's something. Not everything."
"What happens to Evan?"
"For now, we need to determine whether there are any immediate safety concerns. His uncle has temporary authority based on Laura's emergency information, but we can review that."
"Can Evan stay here?"
"Tonight, possibly."
Daniel looked toward the boy.
"I don't want to make things worse."
"Then don't make promises you can't legally keep."
He appreciated the bluntness.
"I won't."
Later, while Ray argued with someone near the nurses' station, Evan pulled Daniel aside.
"Mom had a box."
"What kind of box?"
"At home."
"What's in it?"
"I don't know. Papers."
"Did she tell you to get it?"
"No."
Daniel waited.
Evan twisted his fingers together.
"She said if she ever got hurt, I should remember two things."
"What?"
"Find you."
Daniel nodded.
"And?"
"Don't let Uncle Ray take her papers."
Daniel felt a cold pressure behind his ribs.
"Where are they?"
Evan looked uncertain.
"Some were at home."
"Were?"
"She moved them."
"When?"
"Last week."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Daniel considered the letter again.
There is more. You will have to find it.
He looked across the hall.
Ray had stopped talking on the phone.
Now he was staring toward Laura's room.
The next morning, Daniel went to his father's old house in Lakewood.
His father had died three years earlier, and Daniel had never fully cleared the basement.
Boxes still lined the back wall.
Tax returns.
Old contracts.
Christmas decorations.
Mail forwarded from addresses Daniel had used decades ago.
He did not know what he was looking for.
He only knew Laura had written, I tried to contact you.
More than once.
For years.
Daniel pulled open box after box.
At noon, he found a bundle of old envelopes held together with a rubber band.
Most were junk.
One was addressed to him in handwriting he recognized.
Laura.
The envelope had been opened.
Daniel sat on the basement floor.
Inside was only a single sheet.
Daniel,
I don't know why you won't answer me. I don't know if Ray was right about what you said.
I just need to hear it from you.
Please.
L.
Daniel read it three times.
He had never seen it before.
The postmark was twelve years old.
He searched the rest of the box.
Nothing.
He called his aunt Margaret, who had occasionally collected mail for his father after Daniel moved downtown.
"Do you remember letters from Laura Bennett?"
There was a long silence.
"That name sounds familiar."
"Think."
"Daniel, that was years ago."
"Please."
Another silence.
"I remember some envelopes," Margaret said finally. "Your father was annoyed about them."
"My father?"
"He thought she was trouble. You'd just gotten through the divorce."
Daniel stood so quickly he struck his head on a shelf.
"What did he do?"
"I don't know."
"Did he throw them away?"
"I don't know."
"Did Ray ever come to the house?"
Margaret hesitated.
"Who?"
"Laura's brother."
"I remember some man stopping by once. Said he was returning something for Laura. Your father spoke with him outside."
Daniel closed his eyes.
"When?"
"Around then."
Daniel looked at the letter in his hand.
His father was dead.
Whatever role he had played could no longer be clarified.
But Ray was alive.
And Laura was in a hospital bed.
Daniel returned to the hospital that afternoon.
Evan was sitting with a puzzle book.
Daniel placed the old letter on the table.
The boy read his mother's handwriting.
"She wrote you?"
"Yes."
"You got it?"
"No."
Evan looked up.
Daniel shook his head.
"I found it today. At my father's house."
"So you didn't ignore her."
Daniel did not answer immediately.
"I stopped looking for her eventually."
"That's not the same."
"No," Daniel said. "But it isn't nothing either."
Evan studied him.
Then he reached into his backpack.
"I remembered something."
He pulled out a folded receipt.
"What is that?"
"Mom gave it to me last week."
Daniel unfolded it.
It was for a self-storage facility in Parma.
Unit 214.
Paid six months in advance.
On the back, Laura had written three words.
Not the house.
Daniel stared at it.
Evan whispered, "Those are the papers."
Across the lobby, an elevator opened.
Ray stepped out.
May you like
He saw the receipt in Daniel's hand.
And stopped walking.
