mean?’
Rowan did not answer. She slid a photo across the table instead.
It showed the sewing room before the ceiling collapsed completely. The floral wallpaper was peeled away behind Mara’s fabric cabinet. Inside the opening sat a small metal cash box.
Open.
Empty.
‘We believe something was stored there and removed shortly before the explosion,’ Rowan said.
My first thought was money. It was stupid and small, but minds reach for ordinary explanations because ordinary pain is survivable.
‘We don’t keep cash in the house,’ I said.
‘Not cash,’ Rowan replied. ‘At least, not only cash. The draft mentions a drive.’
A drive.
The word landed somewhere deep.
Three weeks earlier, I had woken at 2:14 in the morning and found Mara standing in the kitchen, staring at her laptop with a hand over her mouth. When I asked what was wrong, she snapped the screen shut so hard the sound cracked through the room.
Client drama, she had said.
Then she smiled, walked over, and kissed my forehead.
Go back to sleep.
I had obeyed because I was tired, because our marriage had been stretched thin by bills and work and Eli’s speech therapy appointments, because sometimes peace becomes more attractive than truth.
Through the glass wall of the interview room, I saw Eli sleeping on a couch under a gray police blanket. One bare foot stuck out at the end. His lashes rested wet against his cheeks.
He had heard the countdown because he had gone upstairs for a hoodie.
Six minutes.
If he had stopped to tie his shoes, if I had hesitated, if I had told him to stop being silly, he would have been ash beneath his dinosaur sheets.
I pressed both palms against the table and leaned forward.
‘Where is my wife?’
Rowan’s eyes softened, but only slightly. ‘We are trying to locate her.’
‘Her phone?’
‘Off.’
‘Her car?’
‘Not at the pharmacy.’
I closed my eyes.
The room seemed to tilt, and suddenly memories rearranged themselves with cruel precision.
Mara changing the passcode on her phone.
Mara insisting the sewing room door stay locked because needles were dangerous for Eli.
Mara receiving late-night calls she took in the garage.
Mara crying in the laundry room last month and saying it was only allergies when I found her.
I had mistaken secrecy for stress.
Maybe I had needed to.
A small sound came from the next room.
Eli was awake.
He sat upright under the blanket, staring straight at me through the glass.
His lips moved.
Backpack.
I pushed away from the table.
‘Daniel,’ Rowan warned.
But I was already at the door.
Eli flinched when I entered too quickly, and the flinch cut me worse than anything else that day. I dropped to my knees beside him.
‘Hey, buddy. I’m here.’
His fingers tightened around the paper cup. ‘Is Mom mad?’
The question hit me so hard I had to look down.
‘No one is mad at you.’
‘She said not to tell.’
I forced myself to breathe slowly. ‘Tell what?’
He glanced at Rowan, who had followed me in but stayed by the doorway.
‘Mom put something in my dinosaur backpack last night.’
My mouth went dry.
‘What kind of something?’
‘A little black stick. Like for the computer. And papers
