Chapter 5 - The Woman in Wisconsin
The phone rang again.
Emily grabbed it before anyone could stop her.
“Rebecca?”
Silence.
Then a woman began crying.
Emily sank onto a storage box.
“Rebecca?”
“Em.”
Six years.
One syllable.
Enough to break her.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t.”
“Are you alive?”
A broken laugh.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come home?”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
Emily cried harder.
I took the phone only when she handed it to me voluntarily.
“Rebecca.”
Silence.
Then:
“Michael Harrington.”
“You know me.”
“I know enough.”
“Catherine?”
The longest pause yet.
Then:
“Alive.”
Everything in me stopped.
Emily covered her mouth.
Daniel sat hard on a box.
James looked away.
I could not speak.
Rebecca said:
“But not the way you remember.”
“What does that mean?”
“Meet me.”
“Where?”
She named a rehabilitation property outside Madison.
Then:
“Come alone.”
“No.”
“Then don’t come.”
I looked at Emily.
“No.”
“I’m coming,” Emily said.
Rebecca sighed.
“Of course you are.”
We went with security kept far enough back that Rebecca wouldn’t see.
The facility was not a hospital.
It had been once.
Now privately owned.
Small.
Quiet.
We entered through a side door.
Rebecca waited in a room overlooking frozen fields.
I recognized her only because of Emily.
Same eyes.
Older.
Scar along her jaw.
Left hand partly contracted from burns.
She stood when we entered.
Emily ran to her.
They held each other for a long time.
I waited.
Then Rebecca looked at me.
“She’s upstairs.”
My knees nearly failed.
“Catherine?”
“Yes.”
I could not move.
For six years I had rehearsed grief.
Accepted death.
Built my entire identity around the absence.
“What happened?”
Rebecca’s face tightened.
“The crash caused a fuel fire.”
“I know.”
“I pulled Catherine out.”
“You were driving.”
“Yes.”
“Who died?”
“Someone else.”
“What?”
Rebecca sat.
“There was another car.”
Raymond’s.
Not Raymond personally.
Two men.
They had been following.
After the crash, one approached.
Rebecca fought him.
He fell near the burning vehicle.
His body became the one recovered.
Pike manipulated identification afterward.
Dental records were swapped.
Catherine survived, barely.
Rebecca got her to a private clinic using contacts from Raymond’s old network.
“Why Raymond’s?”
Emily asked.
Rebecca looked ashamed.
“Because I used to work for him.”
There it was.
She admitted everything.
She had been Raymond’s lover.
Also his courier.
Then realized how deeply criminal his operations were.
Catherine recruited her against him.
“Why hide Catherine?”
“Because she had a brain injury.”
My chest tightened.
“How bad?”
“Memory. Language. Mobility.”
“Now?”
Rebecca looked toward the ceiling.
“She remembers pieces.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Noah?”
Rebecca cried.
“Most of all.”
I stood.
“Take me to her.”
Rebecca did.
The hallway felt endless.
Room 214.
She opened the door.
Catherine sat near the window.
Hair shorter.
Silver beginning at the temples though she was only thirty-nine.
A cane beside her.
Book open.
She looked up.
I had imagined this moment in grief dreams.
Always dramatic.
Running.
Crying.
Recognition.
Reality was quieter.
Catherine stared at me.
I whispered her name.
Her eyes filled.
“Michael?”
One word.
My knees gave out.
I knelt in front of her.
She touched my face.
Slowly.
Like checking whether memory had texture.
“You got older.”
I laughed and cried at once.
“So did you.”
She smiled faintly.
Then:
“Noah?”
That broke me.
“He’s eight.”
Her mouth opened.
Eight.
She had lost six years.
“Is he…”
“Good.”
“Does he remember me?”
“Yes.”
Not fully.
But enough.
She closed her eyes.
I took her hand.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Catherine looked at Rebecca.
Then back to me.
“I told them not to.”
“What?”
Her speech was slower than before.
But clear.
“At first I didn’t know you.”
That hurt.
“Then?”
“Memory came back.”
“When?”
“Pieces over years.”
“And you still stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because Raymond was watching Noah.”
I went cold.
Rebecca explained.
After the crash, Raymond believed Catherine had died.
Then somehow discovered a survivor existed.
He didn’t know where.
So Rebecca moved her repeatedly.
Every time Catherine considered returning, Raymond made indirect threats around Noah.
School.
Driver.
Photographs.
Nothing overt enough for police.
Enough.
Catherine feared coming home would lead him directly to her son.
I wanted to kill Raymond.
The old instinct arrived cleanly.
Catherine saw it.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“Don’t.”
“He stole six years.”
“Yes.”
“He tried to kill you.”
“Yes.”
“He watched our son.”
“Yes.”
“And you want me to do nothing?”
“I want you to do something different.”
Her voice strengthened.
“Michael, if you kill him, Noah loses another parent.”
That silenced me.
She had always understood the cost before I did.
Emily stood near the door crying.
Catherine saw her.
“Em.”
Emily rushed to her.
“You idiot.”
Catherine laughed softly.
“Hello to you too.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
“You told me to protect Noah and then disappeared.”
“I’m sorry.”
Emily held her.
Watching them explained the tone.
The way Emily said Noah’s name.
She had learned it from Catherine years ago.
Not blood.
Love.
Later, I asked Catherine about the ownership instrument.
She smiled.
“The original?”
“Yes.”
“With Noah.”
I frowned.
“He was two.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
She looked at me.
“You still have his old stuffed lion?”
I stared.
Mr. Roar.
Catherine had sewn it herself.
Noah slept with it for years.
It now sat on a shelf in his room.
The original ownership document—
Inside a child’s toy.
Of course.
No one searches grief objects.
Rebecca said:
“Raymond doesn’t know.”
Catherine looked at me.
“He knows enough.”
“What does he want now?”
“To become your son’s guardian if something happens to you.”
Cold moved through me.
Five women.
Marriage interviews.
Family stability.
My attempt to find Noah a mother.
Raymond had encouraged it.
He had said marriage would make Harrington House look stable for investors.
But perhaps he wanted access.
A new wife he could influence.
A household he could penetrate.
Then my phone rang.
James.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Problem at the estate.”
My chest tightened.
“Noah?”
“Safe.”
“Then?”
“Raymond is here.”
I stood.
“Why?”
“He says he came to congratulate you.”
“For what?”
May you like
James paused.
“For choosing Emily Carter.”
