Chapter 2 - THE WATER ABOVE THE GUEST ROOM
I wanted to chase the sedan. Instead I took down its plate number from the doorbell camera, whose picture blurred whenever a car passed the maple tree. The last two characters were unclear. A poor image was still better than a guess, and I saved the original clip without changing it.
Nicolai called Chloe on speakerphone while I stood across the kitchen. Chloe confirmed that his apartment had flooded, that she had asked Evelyn whether her brother could stay two nights, and that Evelyn had said yes. Chloe had not mentioned our bedroom. When she heard about the ceiling leak, she told him to leave immediately.
I told Nicolai to dress and take his own things, then asked him to write down everything he remembered. He had worked late at his restaurant and arrived at our house at nine. At eleven forty-seven, Evelyn called him downstairs to see the guest bath. At midnight she carried clean sheets upstairs and told him he would have the master room alone.
“Where did she sleep?” I asked. He shook his head. Evelyn had said she was staying with Chloe because repair workers might arrive early and she needed to pick up supplies. Chloe, still on the phone, said Evelyn had never come to her house. For the first time Nicolai looked offended rather than frightened.
A local plumber arrived an hour later. I showed him the dripping guest bath and asked him to document what he found before touching anything. The upstairs laundry supply line had been loosened by hand; it fed water down a wall cavity into the guest ceiling. He shut the valve and photographed the connection. I kept his work order.
That leak had pushed Nicolai out of the guest room, but it still did not tell me why Evelyn wanted him in our bed. I photographed the wet ceiling, the nearly empty closet, and the opened file drawers. Then I called Ruth Delgado, the attorney who handled my company's commercial contracts, and asked for a personal referral.
Ruth called back herself. “Do not confront either of them,” she said after hearing the outline. “Bring the paper, the original camera footage, and your timeline. We need to separate your marriage from whatever happened to the business accounts.” Her voice was calm enough that I finally noticed my hands shaking.
I had loved Evelyn through layoffs, my father's death, and the winter our daughter Leah spent in the hospital after an accident. I knew which foods she ate when she was anxious and how she folded a newspaper to avoid smearing the print. None of that helped me understand the missing passport.
Leah called just before noon. Evelyn had texted her that morning: Taking a few days away. Your father knows why. Don't let him upset you. I told Leah I did not know why and asked her to keep the message. Silence filled the line before she said, “Dad, Mom told me you were hiding money.”
It was the first I had heard of that allegation. Leah said Evelyn had been worried for months, especially since I went to Dallas. She had made Leah promise not to ask me about it until she had proof. I looked down at the inventory in my hand, at my own retirement account written beside an unknown balance.
I told Leah I was going to an attorney and that I would show her whatever records the law allowed me to show. She said she wanted to believe me. I heard how difficult the words were for her. When we hung up, the doorbell camera sent an alert: someone had stepped onto the porch.
The plumber's report arrived by email before Leah's call had stopped echoing in my head. He had sketched the pipe and marked where a tool would normally be required for the connection, then noted fresh pressure marks around the loosened fitting. He could not say who had touched it. He could say that ordinary wear had not moved it into that position overnight.
I walked through the guest room with my phone held low, recording what a visitor would have seen. A row of books, spare towels, a lamp, and the suitcase Nicolai had carried upstairs. Evelyn had prepared the bed carefully. For the first time I wondered whether the leak was meant to redirect him, or whether the whole night had been arranged to make me search the wrong room.
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In the pantry I found grocery receipts from the week I was away, all the comforts of a routine that had continued without me. Nothing in them mattered to the investigation, but I kept one folded in my pocket. Its date was three days before the archive boxes vanished. Evelyn had bought my favorite coffee while planning to leave.
A courier in a rain jacket placed an envelope against the door and left without ringing. Inside was a single typed page, unsigned: Arthur, please do not look for me. If anyone asks where I am, tell them you were home all night. I read it twice. Evelyn knew I had been home, and someone else now wanted that fact established in writing.
