Chapter 5 - Why She Chose Ryan
Ryan threw up in my kitchen sink.
That was his reaction when I showed him the photograph.
“I’ve never seen that badge.”
Daniel examined the image.
“Where was this taken?”
“My apartment.”
“When?”
Ryan zoomed in.
“Last spring.”
I studied my brother.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
He looked terrified, but not guilty.
Daniel asked, “Did Tessa ever ask about Noah?”
“All the time.”
My stomach dropped.
Ryan began remembering things he had previously considered normal.
Questions about Noah’s work.
Questions about Dad’s garage.
Whether Camille had kept Noah’s laptop.
Whether anything had been recovered from the truck.
At the time, Ryan thought Tessa was trying to understand our family tragedy.
Now every question looked different.
“Why would she care?” he whispered.
Daniel had a theory.
Noah’s missing evidence.
If Victor Hale believed Noah had given documents to someone before he died, Ryan was an easy route into the family.
“But four years?” I asked.
Daniel nodded.
“That’s the problem.”
Ryan looked offended despite everything.
“You think she pretended to love me for four years?”
“I think people can have more than one motive.”
That was somehow worse.
Tessa may have targeted Ryan because of Noah.
She may also have genuinely wanted to marry him.
Human beings were messy enough to do both.
The police advised us not to contact her.
For once, everyone listened.
Three days later, Detective Lena Ortiz came to my house.
She was direct, calm, and unimpressed by family drama.
I liked her immediately.
“We searched Ms. Reed’s apartment pursuant to the investigation.”
Ryan swallowed.
“And?”
“We found photographs of your parents’ home.”
“That isn’t strange. She visited them.”
“Some were taken through windows.”
Silence.
Ortiz continued.
“We also recovered notes documenting locations where your brother-in-law’s belongings were stored after his death.”
My heart began pounding.
“Who gave her that information?”
“We’re investigating.”
Daniel asked about Hale.
Ortiz gave him a look.
“You’re not law enforcement, Mr. Hart.”
“No.”
“Then stop trying to be.”
I almost smiled.
Daniel did not.
Ortiz turned back to me.
“There’s something else.”
She placed a clear evidence sleeve on the table.
Inside was a torn scrap of purple construction paper.
I stopped breathing.
Elsie’s star.
“The missing piece?” I whispered.
Dad had returned one missing piece.
Apparently there had been another.
“We found this in Ms. Reed’s desk.”
“Why would she keep it?”
Ortiz’s expression was unreadable.
“That’s what we asked.”
“And?”
“She requested counsel.”
The scrap contained only two things.
Half of Noah’s name.
And part of the gold heart Elsie had drawn around it.
I felt sick.
Tessa hadn’t simply ripped a child’s artwork.
She had taken the piece bearing Noah’s name.
Why?
Ryan stood suddenly.
“I need air.”
Outside, I found him sitting on the porch steps.
Snow covered the yard.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
He laughed weakly.
Then his face twisted.
“I was going to marry her.”
“I know.”
“I bought a house.”
I stared.
“What?”
His eyes filled.
“Two weeks before Thanksgiving.”
Apparently Ryan had put a deposit on a small house outside Columbus.
Three bedrooms.
A backyard.
Tessa wanted children immediately after marriage.
He had imagined family cookouts.
Elsie sleeping over.
Dad teaching future grandchildren to fish.
“I thought I was building something.”
“You were.”
“With the wrong person.”
“That doesn’t make the part of you that wanted it stupid.”
He looked at me.
“When did you get wise?”
“Probably somewhere between widowhood and kindergarten pickup.”
He laughed again.
Then the front door opened.
Elsie stepped outside wearing boots on the wrong feet.
She carried a folded piece of paper.
“Uncle Ryan?”
He wiped his face.
“Yeah, peanut?”
She handed it to him.
A drawing.
Two stick figures throwing snowballs.
Above them, in shaky kindergarten letters:
UNCLE RYAN + ELSIE.
He broke.
Not dramatically.
He simply lowered his head and cried.
Elsie looked alarmed.
“Do you hate it?”
Ryan pulled her gently into his arms.
“No. I love it.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“Because sometimes grown-ups cry when something is really good.”
Elsie considered that.
“That’s weird.”
“Extremely.”
She hugged him anyway.
I watched from the doorway.
Maybe trust didn’t return in grand gestures.
Maybe it came back in crayons.
That evening, Detective Ortiz called.
They had identified the origin of Noah’s badge.
It had been held in county evidence after his crash.
Then checked out three years ago by an authorized official.
It was never returned.
“Who signed it out?” I asked.
Ortiz hesitated.
“Victor Hale.”
I closed my eyes.
There was more.
Hale’s phone records showed repeated calls to Tessa.
Including one on Thanksgiving night.
Seventeen minutes after I left urgent care.
Tessa had called him.
And she hadn’t said she’d made a terrible mistake.
May you like
According to the message Hale later sent her, she had said something else entirely:
Did you get the piece?
