Chapter 5 - The Appointment Nobody Canceled
Dr. Hart arrived at three fifteen the following afternoon.
He carried the same brown medical bag, wore the same reassuring smile, and asked the same question at the front door.
“How is our little patient?”
Mrs. Galloway did not answer.
An investigator waiting inside introduced herself and asked him to step into the sitting room.
Hart’s smile faltered only once.
Then he recovered.
“There seems to be a misunderstanding.”
“There are several questions about your employment history,” the investigator said.
Caelan watched from the library doorway.
He had been instructed to remain outside the interview.
Every instinct he possessed objected.
He stayed where he was.
Hart initially claimed the clinic’s records were incomplete.
Then he said he had been working independently.
When asked why his invoices still carried the clinic’s name, he requested an attorney.
The interview stopped.
It was maddening.
It was also the first time Caelan had watched restraint preserve something instead of surrender it.
Investigators took possession of devices and records under the appropriate legal authority. Caelan did not receive immediate access to everything they found.
Lena had warned him about that.
“You are a father and a potential witness,” she said. “You are not the entire justice system.”
Sophia was already elsewhere by then.
Her new room was smaller than her bedroom at the estate.
She liked it better.
The furniture stayed where people said it would.
A qualified orientation and mobility specialist named Marisol Chen introduced herself before approaching and asked Sophia what she wanted to learn first.
“The front door.”
Marisol smiled.
“Excellent place to start.”
There was no speech about special powers.
No suggestion that blindness had sharpened her hearing into something magical.
There were practical skills, patient explanations, and permission to become frustrated without being treated as fragile.
Sophia learned to use a cane.
She bumped a chair.
She swore softly.
Mrs. Galloway pretended not to hear.
For the first time in years, progress looked ordinary.
Rachel spoke to her by telephone that evening.
“What did you do?”
“Found a door.”
“Good door?”
“Very good. Goes outside.”
Rachel laughed.
Sophia grew quiet.
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not right now.”
“All right.”
That answer seemed to matter more than the offer.
After the call, Rachel met with investigators again.
The records she had hidden were now being transferred through attorneys, with their history documented carefully.
Some supported her account.
Others required explanation.
One set of invoices connected Vale’s company to shell businesses receiving money from the Vespari organization.
Another contained references to an operation three years earlier.
A vehicle.
A route change.
A payment made the day before Bella Caruso died.
Rachel stared at the screen.
“Caelan needs to know.”
The prosecutor studied her.
“He will be informed when we can do so without compromising the inquiry.”
“His wife was murdered.”
“We understand.”
Rachel wanted to argue.
Then she remembered how often Caelan’s certainty had made him dangerous.
She forced herself to remain seated.
Outside the interview room, Lena brought her coffee.
“I hate waiting,” Rachel said.
“Most people do.”
“I used to be useful when things moved quickly.”
“You’re useful now.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
Lena sat beside her.
“Sometimes useful means giving other people enough time to do their work without rescuing them from the discomfort of doing it properly.”
Rachel looked at her.
“You say that to him too?”
“Constantly.”
At the estate, Caelan waited for news.
He walked through Sophia’s empty room, seeing it as she must have known it.
Soft rugs that caught feet.
Furniture moved by staff.
Toys displayed where she could not identify them.
A beautiful room arranged for people who could look at it.
On the dresser stood a photograph of Bella.
He turned it around and found an old inscription.
Let her become herself.
He sat on the bed.
For three years, he had treated those words as a memory.
Now they felt like instructions.
Before midnight, the prosecutor called.
There was information about the bombing.
Caelan listened without speaking.
May you like
When the call ended, he did not reach for a weapon.
He reached for Lena’s number.
