Chapter 3 - A NAME INSIDE THE WALLS
I stared at the anonymous message until the letters began to blur.
Mara advised me to forward it to Ruiz and avoid engaging with the sender.
I obeyed.
An hour later, the detective called to ask whether my family had employed a housekeeper named Ruth Bell.
The name dragged a forgotten memory out of childhood.
Ruth had worked for my parents when I was thirteen.
She cleaned the kitchen, ironed my father's shirts, and left suddenly one winter.
My mother said she had stolen a bracelet.
My father warned me never to mention her again.
“I remember her,” I told Ruiz.
“Why?”
“She contacted us.”
Ruth was sixty-eight now and lived two counties away.
She had seen an article about the incident and recognized the dining room.
She told investigators that Charles had installed cameras after a previous family dispute.
He used them, she said, to prove that anyone contradicting him was dishonest.
But Ruth also described a locked cabinet in his study.
It contained old drives labeled by year.
“I can't make accusations based on a recollection,” Ruiz said.
“Neither can I,” I replied.
Afterward I sat with Toby while a nurse checked the circulation in his fingers.
His cast was blue, as requested.
He had drawn a small bridge along the plaster with my help.
“Could you draw a stronger one?” he asked.
“Stronger than a hundred cars?”
“Strong enough for people who are scared.”
My heart hurt at the answer.
On Friday, Brenda arrived at the hospital without warning.
Security stopped her at the children's floor.
From the nurse's desk, she called me fourteen times.
I let Mara handle it.
Brenda eventually left a voice message.
“You're making this worse than it needs to be.”
Then her tone changed.
“I know you think you have the upper hand because of your fancy robe.”
A pause.
“But there are things in this family you don't understand.”
I sent the recording to Mara.
She called back almost immediately.
“Do you think Brenda means something specific?”
“I think she wants me frightened,” I said.
“Is it working?”
I looked at Toby's little shoes beside the bed.
“Yes.”
That night Ruth called the detective again.
She remembered the name on one of the drives.
It was not a year.
May you like
It was my name.
