Chapter 27 - Until Someone Answered
Claire watched the clock without believing it.
Only an hour had passed since the last confirmed update. Her body insisted it had been most of a night.
Rachel had taken Emma home according to the plan they had explained to her. The next morning's planetarium visit could still happen with Rachel if the adults remained occupied. Emma had chosen that arrangement herself after asking whether she would be told when Beth was safe.
“Yes,” Claire had said. “When we know.”
Now Claire sat beside Vincent in a waiting area made painfully familiar by its paper cups and plain chairs.
His lawyer was speaking with investigators elsewhere. They had supplied the information requested. There was nothing useful either of them could do by driving toward Millstone Printworks.
Vincent stood, walked to the window, and came back.
Claire looked up.
“Sit.”
He sat.
For a moment, she remembered an earlier version of him who would have heard an order as a challenge.
Then he asked, “Do you need water?”
“Yes.”
He got it.
She drank and made herself eat part of the sandwich Audrey had brought. Being frightened did not excuse becoming another person someone would have to care for unnecessarily.
A little after midnight, Keene entered.
“Beth is alive. She's with the medical team. Her family has been notified.”
Claire put the cup down too carefully.
Vincent did not speak until the agent continued.
“Sloane is in custody. Another man associated with the premises has also been detained. We're still establishing each person's role.”
“Was anyone killed?” Vincent asked.
“No.”
His shoulders lowered.
The operation would receive its own review. Devices and records had been secured for examination. Beth's account would be taken when she was able to give it. The team had enough to explain the immediate result without offering a complete narrative before the evidence was examined.
Claire thanked Keene, then covered her face.
The relief hurt.
Keene asked whether either had received further contact. They answered separately and supplied the relevant details. The agent made sure they understood how any new approach should be reported, then left to continue the work.
The room felt different after the door closed. The immediate fear had somewhere to go now, and Claire discovered how exhausted she was beneath it.
“I thought I'd feel better all at once,” she said.
Vincent looked at the untouched half of the sandwich.
“Perhaps your body hasn't heard the news yet.”
She gave a tired laugh.
“Yours?”
“Also behind on correspondence.”
The faint humor did not diminish Beth's danger or turn the waiting into something they had enjoyed. It made one ordinary moment possible inside it.
Claire would remember that later: he had not required her relief to look complete before allowing the frightening part to end.
Vincent kept his hands on his knees until she reached for one of them.
He held hers without speaking.
Later, Tessa called Claire from the hospital. Beth was receiving appropriate care and had asked whether her grandson knew she had not chosen to miss collecting him.
“He knows,” Tessa said. “I've told her twice. I'll keep telling her.”
Claire looked toward the corridor where Vincent waited.
“Good.”
Beth had been intercepted by a man working with Sloane and taken to the printing premises. Sloane wanted access to records and a statement withdrawing the concerns she had raised. He had treated her silence as a resource he could force into existence.
Her private explanation to Tessa was simpler.
“I kept saying the numbers weren't what he said they were.”
Claire heard that sentence afterward and understood why it had frightened him.
On Saturday morning, the planetarium visit happened.
Rachel took Emma. Claire and Vincent remained available for follow-up questions. They called the girl before she left, gave her the confirmed news she had requested, and asked which program she had chosen.
She told them.
For several minutes, the conversation concerned stars.
Vincent promised to hear about it afterward, and this time the promise had an ordinary deadline.
He called at four.
Emma answered with a complaint about a man who had kept checking his bright phone during the program. Vincent listened while she explained how hard it was to see anything when someone refused to let a room become dark.
He thought of several ways the sentence could apply to him.
He did not make her presentation into a metaphor about her father.
He asked what she had liked best.
That evening, Claire brought Emma's forgotten notebook to Vincent's apartment before the next part of their planned visit. The girl was at the table arranging tickets and a postcard into a journal.
“Rachel says I can interview her again,” she said.
“Has she remembered a fourth parking ticket?” Claire asked.
“Five.”
“An expanding historical record.”
Emma laughed, then became serious.
“Beth's really going home?”
“When the people caring for her say she's ready,” Vincent answered. “Her family is with her.”
The girl nodded.
On the kitchen counter, his phone remained face down after the necessary calls were finished.
Claire noticed that she had stopped checking it every time it moved.
The discovery was quiet enough that she nearly missed it.
She stayed for tea. They discussed the planetarium postcard, a broken cupboard hinge, and a school deadline. Vincent admitted he had forgotten to buy the milk Emma preferred and had gone back for it before she arrived.
Such a small correction.
Such an ordinary one.
As Claire prepared to leave, Emma followed her into the hallway.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
The girl glanced toward the kitchen, then looked back.
“At school, before the call about the office, you looked happy talking to Dad.”
Claire rested her hand against the doorframe.
May you like
“I remember.”
“Was that real?”
