Part 2.1
Elise Ward had practiced Daniel's name for three blocks.
She had whispered it through chattering teeth while the city moved around her as if she were part of the weather.
Daniel Reed.
Bench by the old apartments.
Black suit.
Gray-blue eyes.
If he cried, let him cry first.
That was what his sister had told her in the dark.
Not all at once.
Not like a message in a film.
A word here.
A memory there.
A brother who hated funerals.
A bench under evergreens.
A briefcase he carried when he wanted people to think he was fine.
Elise had held those fragments inside her like matches cupped against the wind.
Now she stood in front of the man they belonged to, and all her courage felt too small.
Daniel's face had changed after her sentence.
Grief had not left him.
It had simply turned around.
"Say it again," he said.
His voice was not loud now.
That made it worse.
Elise swallowed.
A leaf slid off the edge of his briefcase and landed between them.
"She didn't run away," Elise said. "They wanted you to believe she did."
Daniel shook his head once, fast, as if refusing pain could still change its direction.
"No."
"I'm sorry."
"No, you do not get to walk out of nowhere and say that to me."
The words came broken and furious, but his hands stayed open at his sides.
He did not touch her.
He looked as if the smallest movement might destroy whatever held him upright.
Elise took a breath that tasted of wet leaves and old stone.
"She sent me to you."
Daniel's eyes flashed.
"My sister is gone."
"I know what they told you."
"You know nothing about my family."
The sentence struck her harder than he meant it to.
Elise looked toward the rear-left buildings, their windows dull with late afternoon.
Behind one of those windows, someone might have already noticed she had reached the park.
May you like
Or maybe no one had.
Maybe that was the most frightening part.
