Chapter 6 - Where the Bells Rang Twice
Waiting became its own kind of work.
I checked Leo’s homework. I brushed Pepper. I washed cups that were already clean.
Adrian paced through rooms without noticing he had entered them.
The former nurse’s name was Naomi Price.
She had worked at the recovery residence for six weeks before resigning over restrictions she believed were improper. She had later reported concerns to a licensing office, but she had not known her patient’s true identity.
The woman had been introduced as a relative recovering from a head injury.
Visitors were restricted.
Her calls were supposedly upsetting her.
Certain staff insisted that her repeated demands to see her son were evidence of confusion.
Naomi had not believed them.
She had kept dates and observations in a private notebook because she was worried.
Now those notes mattered.
One entry described a man bringing a recording of a child laughing over a ruined birthday cake.
Another described the patient asking permission to record a song in return.
The date was the morning after Leo’s birthday.
Adrian read the summary twice.
Then he handed it back to the detective.
His hands were shaking.
The bells were simpler than we had imagined.
A chapel stood near the recovery residence. Its old clock sounded two notes before striking the hour.
The same sound had carried through Victor’s phone call.
The same sound Elise had worked into her song.
She had not known whether her brother would ever hear it.
She had sent the only message she could place inside something Victor wanted.
A lullaby to quiet Leo.
A reminder that his mother still existed.
I stood beside the window, looking out at water darkened by approaching rain.
For days, I had been afraid to hope.
Now I was afraid of how much hope Adrian already carried.
“What if they moved her?” I asked Detective Alvarez quietly.
“We’re accounting for that possibility.”
“What if she doesn’t know we’re coming?”
“She doesn’t need to do anything.”
The firmness helped.
No secret mission for a frightened woman.
No requirement that she rescue herself correctly.
Someone was finally coming with authority to open the door.
That night, Leo woke crying.
I found him sitting upright, fists tangled in his blanket.
“What happened?”
“I forgot her face.”
I sat beside him.
He shook his head hard.
“I know what pictures look like. But I forgot how she looked when she was talking.”
My throat tightened.
“That can happen when you miss someone for a long time.”
“Does it mean I’m forgetting her?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
I thought of my mother, dead since I was sixteen. The sound of her laugh came easily some days and disappeared completely on others.
“Because remembering isn’t a test,” I said. “You don’t lose someone because you can’t make every picture stay clear.”
He leaned against me.
“Will Uncle Adrian forget her?”
“No.”
“He gets sad when I say her name.”
“He misses her too.”
Adrian appeared in the doorway.
I didn’t know how long he had been there.
He came to the bed and sat on Leo’s other side.
“You can say her name,” he told him.
“Even at breakfast?”
“Even then.”
“Even if people go quiet?”
“Then I’ll help them remember how to talk.”
Leo rested his head on Adrian’s arm.
For a few minutes, the three of us sat beneath the night-light while Pepper snored from the rug.
Later, in the hallway, Adrian stopped me.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me every time.”
“I’m trying to learn which things I should have been saying all along.”
I looked up at him.
There was something between us now that had nothing to do with the size of his house or the stories attached to his name.
That frightened me more than attraction should have.
“You’re exhausted,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And scared.”
“Yes.”
I stepped back a little.
“Then we shouldn’t confuse needing someone tonight with knowing what we want later.”
He understood immediately.
He did not reach for me.
“Fair.”
The next morning, he spoke to Miriam alone for almost an hour.
When he emerged, his expression was different.
Still frightened.
But decided.
“I’ve authorized a full review of the businesses,” he told me. “And I’m giving the investigators what I know.”
I searched his face.
“About Victor?”
“About all of it.”
“You could lose everything.”
He glanced toward Leo’s room.
“No,” he said quietly. “I’ve been very confused about what everything is.”
At eleven seventeen, Detective Alvarez’s number appeared on his phone.
He answered before the first ring finished.
I watched his face.
He closed his eyes.
Then he said one word.
“Alive?”
My knees nearly gave way.
Adrian pressed his free hand against the wall.
May you like
“Yes,” he whispered, listening.
Then he began to cry.
