The girl couldn't have been more than nine or ten.
"Is she alive?"
"I think so."
"Where is she?"
Denise stepped inside.
"I don't know. But I know where she was last seen."
She placed the photograph on the kitchen table.
On the back, someone had written a date.
OCTOBER 6, 1994.
The same date as the photograph she had given me the night before.
"Where was this taken?" I asked.
"Behind the pumping station."
I looked up.
"You were there that night."
"Yes."
"And you saw my father."
Denise nodded.
"Then tell me what happened."
She sat down slowly.
"Your father came to the station carrying a metal case. He was frightened. He kept looking over his shoulder. Thomas was supposed to meet him there, but Thomas never arrived."
"What about Martin?"
"He was already there."
I felt my stomach tighten.
"What did Martin want?"
"The case."
"Did he get it?"
Denise looked down at her hands.
"Yes."
"Then why did you tell me the evidence was somewhere else?"
"Because the case was empty."
I stared at her.
"Empty?"
"Martin opened it in front of me. He expected to find the original survey and the work logs. There was nothing inside except a piece of paper with a set of coordinates."
"Where did the coordinates lead?"
"To the old drainage tunnel."
The room seemed to grow colder.
"And my father?"
"Robert refused to tell Martin where the documents were. They argued. Martin struck him."
"Did he kill him?"
"I don't know."
"You were there. You must have seen."
"I saw Robert fall. I saw Martin drag him toward the station entrance. Then the lights went out."
"Why didn't you tell the police?"
"Because I was seventeen. Martin told me he would say I had helped Robert steal company property. He said my father would be blamed for Daniel's death, and that I would spend the rest of my life being questioned about a murder I hadn't committed."
"You believed him?"
"I was young."
"That doesn't explain why you stayed silent for twenty-two years."
Her eyes filled, but she didn't look away.
"Because I was afraid. And because Thomas told me that Robert had been found."
"Found where?"
"That's what I never understood. Thomas said Robert was gone and that there was nothing left to recover. He told me to keep quiet."
"Yet you gave me his letter."
"Because I found out Thomas had lied."
I leaned against the counter.
"What did you find?"
"An old hospital admission record. A man matching Robert's description was brought to Saint Agnes Medical Center on October 7, 1994. He was unconscious. The record was later amended. His name disappeared."
"Can you prove it was my father?"
"No. But there was a note in the file. It mentioned a broken wrist and a scar beneath the left shoulder."
My breath caught.
My father had a scar beneath his left shoulder. I remembered it from childhood, a pale crescent that I used to trace with my finger when he carried me to bed.
"Where is the hospital record?"
"Thomas had it. I don't know where it is now."
I stared at the photograph of Elena.
"What happened to her?"
Denise's expression changed.
"That's the part I didn't want to tell you."
"Tell me anyway."
"She was at the pumping station that night. She saw Martin take the case. She also saw someone else leave with your father."
"Who?"
"I don't know. She described a woman wearing a dark coat."
"Did she tell anyone?"
"She told her mother. The next morning, Daniel's wife went to the police. By the end of the week, both of them had left Briar Glen."
"Why?"
"Because someone threatened to report Elena as a runaway and accuse her mother of kidnapping her."
"Who threatened them?"
Denise looked toward the window.
"Edward Mercer."
The name from my mother's story.
Arthur Harrow's lawyer.
I pulled out my phone.
"I need to speak to Bennett."
"Wait," Denise said. "There's something else."
She reached into her coat and took out a folded sheet of paper.
It was a photocopy of an old personnel record. Most of the text was faded, but one line remained clear.
MARTIN COLE — EMERGENCY CONTACT: E. RUIZ.
I looked at her.
"Why would Martin list Daniel Ruiz as his emergency contact?"
"He didn't."
She pointed to the small handwritten initial at the end of the line.
"Elena."
I looked back at the photograph.
The girl in the yellow raincoat seemed suddenly different. Not just a witness. Not just a child who had seen something terrible.