“I think she knew Caleb during a period we know nothing about.”
“I’m standing right here,” I said.
Ethan exhaled.
“We’ll go together.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow.
“We?”
“Yes.”
“You have meetings.”
“Cancel them.”
“You have a board call at three.”
“Move it.”
I stared at him.
A few hours ago, I had been afraid he would fire me for disrupting the office.
Now he was canceling meetings to investigate the father of my child.
The speed of it frightened me.
“So that’s what you do?” I asked. “You decide, and the whole world rearranges itself?”
“Usually.”
“At least you’re honest.”
His eyes softened.
“I am trying to be.”
That sentence stayed with me.
We left the building through a private elevator.
I had never used it before. The interior was polished wood and brass, silent enough to hear Lily breathing against my coat.
Ethan stood beside us, hands in his pockets.
Without the vast office around him, he seemed different. Still controlled. Still imposing. But less untouchable.
In the underground garage, a black sedan waited.
Daniel drove.
Ethan sat in the back with Lily and me.
At first, none of us spoke.
Snow had begun to fall, thin white lines against the windows.
Lily pressed both palms to the glass.
“Pretty,” she said.
“Yes,” Ethan replied. “It is.”
She turned toward him.
“Eth.”
I stared at her.
Ethan did too.
“She learns names quickly,” I said.
“I didn’t tell her mine.”
“She heard me say it.”
“When?”
“In the office.”
He seemed to consider this important.
Lily held out her stuffed rabbit.
Ethan accepted that too.
Within ten minutes, he had been given a cracker, a rabbit, and one pink sock she had pulled off herself.
He arranged all three on his knee as though they were documents requiring careful review.
I laughed.
This time, he did smile.
“You find this amusing.”
“You look like you’re chairing a very unusual board meeting.”
“The rabbit has raised several concerns.”
“His name is Mr. Buttons.”
“Then Mr. Buttons should have come prepared.”
Lily giggled.
The sound filled the car.
Ethan went very still.
I watched him watch her.
For a moment, the mystery of Caleb faded, replaced by something simpler and perhaps more dangerous.
Connection.
By the time we reached the auto shop, the snow had thickened.
The sign still read MARTIN’S AUTO REPAIR, but several letters were faded. The garage doors were closed. A chain hung across the entrance.
Daniel parked across the street.
“This place has been shut down for fourteen months,” he said.
“That can’t be right,” I replied. “It was busy when Caleb worked here.”
“Busy with real customers?”
“Yes.”
I remembered the waiting area. The ringing phone. The mechanics moving between cars.
At least, I thought I did.
Ethan looked toward the building.
“Who owns it now?”
“A holding company registered in Delaware,” Daniel said. “I’ll trace it.”
We crossed the street.
Daniel unlocked the side door with permission obtained from the property manager. The moment I stepped inside, the smell struck me.
Oil.
Dust.
Cold metal.
Memory.
The front room was emptier than I remembered, but the counter remained. So did the cracked vinyl chairs and the coffee machine that had never worked properly.
Lily stayed in Ethan’s arms because the floor was dirty.
I moved toward the counter.
“This is where I met him.”
No one answered.
I walked through the narrow doorway into the garage.
Sunlight filtered through grimy windows, revealing suspended dust.
The repair bays were empty.
I could almost hear Caleb’s laugh echoing beneath the high ceiling.
He had stood near the second lift, wiping his hands on a red cloth.
He had looked at my hopeless little car and said, “I can fix the engine, but I can’t fix your taste.”
I had told him my taste was excellent.
He had asked for proof over dinner.
I stopped beside the second lift.
“There was a tool cabinet here.”
Daniel examined the floor.
“Anything important about it?”
“Caleb kept his things in the bottom drawer.”
“What things?”
“Receipts. Spare keys. A notebook.”
“What kind of notebook?”
“I never looked inside.”
Daniel crouched.
Four pale marks showed where the cabinet had once stood.
Ethan shifted Lily higher.
“Was anything else different?”
I turned slowly.
The garage was familiar, but wrong in small ways.
The wall clock was missing.
The red emergency phone was gone.
Then I noticed a square of clean paint near the back office.
“There was a photograph there.”
“Of what?” Daniel asked.
“A group of men standing outside the shop. Caleb said one of them was his grandfather.”
Ethan’s gaze sharpened.
“Our grandfather never worked in an auto shop.”
“I know that now.”
Daniel entered the back office.
A desk remained, along with two filing cabinets. Most drawers were empty.
I walked to the window.
From here, the owner—or the man pretending to be the owner—would have seen every customer entering.
“Claire,” Daniel called.
He held a small object in his gloved hand.
A brass key.
It had been taped beneath the desk.
Attached to it was a paper tag.
The ink had faded, but one word was visible.
PARKER.
My stomach turned.
“That was his name here.”
Daniel examined the key.
“Could be a locker.”
“Or a storage unit,” Ethan said.
I stared at the tag.
Caleb Parker.
The name had once belonged to the man I loved.
Now it felt like a door.
We searched the office for another hour.
Daniel found old invoices, all printed under the business name. Most were ordinary.
Then Ethan discovered something unusual.
A ledger page had slipped behind the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet.
It listed monthly expenses.
Rent.
Utilities.