On the Table She Finally Recognized Me

Chapter 4 The Other Woman

Elena Vasquez lived in a duplex on the south side of the city, in a neighborhood that had been working-class for a hundred years and was now fighting a losing battle against the incoming tide of tech money. I went there the next morning, after a sleepless night spent reading and re-reading Daniel's notebook.

I told myself I was going because I needed to understand who had killed him. But that was only part of the truth. The other part was simpler and uglier. I needed to understand who he had become after he left me, and why he had been photographing her.

I parked on the street and waited. At 8:15, a woman walked out of the duplex, holding a cup of coffee and a leather bag. She matched the photographs exactly. Dark hair pulled back. Sharp cheekbones. A quick, decisive walk. She was older than I had expected, maybe late thirties, with a face that had seen things and learned not to show it.

She didn't notice me. She got into a silver car and drove away.

I followed her.

I told myself it was professional. I was a witness, an ex-wife, a person of interest. I had every right to be here. But I felt like a ghost, drifting through a life that wasn't mine.

She drove to a small office building near the waterfront, one of those anonymous structures of glass and stone that housed a dozen companies no one had ever heard of. She parked in the underground garage. I parked on the street and waited.

I waited for four hours.

At noon, she came out again, this time with a man. He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a suit that had been tailored for him and no one else. They walked together to a nearby restaurant and sat at a table near the window. They talked. They laughed. They looked like people who knew each other well.

I took out my phone and photographed him. Then I went home and ran his face through a public records database I had access to through the university. It took me twenty minutes to find his name.

Marcus Hale.

The same name that had been on Daniel's lease. The same name that Daniel had used to hide.

I sat back in my chair and stared at the screen. Marcus Hale was a venture capitalist, a man who had made his fortune in biotech and was now a fixture on the city's philanthropic circuit. He sat on the boards of three hospitals and a private foundation. He was photographed at galas and fundraisers and charity auctions. He was, by every visible measure, a pillar of the community.

And Daniel had been living under his name.

That night, I called Marsh.

"Marcus Hale," I said. "Look into him."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "Dr. Harrow, I need to tell you something."

"What?"

"We ran the DNA from the body. The results came back an hour ago."

"And?"

"The man on your table is not Daniel Reyes."

I felt the floor drop out from under me.

"What?"

"The DNA doesn't match. We pulled Daniel Reyes's records from the state database. He was arrested for trespassing twelve years ago, and they kept the sample. The body on your table is someone else."

"Then who?"

"We don't know. But Dr. Harrow, there's something else. Daniel Reyes is not dead."

I sat down heavily on the edge of my bed.

"Where is he?"

"We don't know. But he's out there. And whoever was on your table, someone went to a great deal of trouble to make sure you thought it was him."

I looked down at the red cord on my wrist. The knot was still tight. The thread was still red.

Someone had known about us. Someone had known about the cord, the scar, the body that I would recognize.

And they had used that knowledge against me.