Chapter Twenty-Six: The Name She Shouldn’t Know
1453 Words
Cole
Harper sent me the screenshot at eleven forty-three.
**She knew your name before he died.**
A second message followed.
**Ask her why she let him keep coming back to you.**
I read both twice.
Then I called.
Harper rejected the call.
I tried again.
This time, she answered.
“What?”
“Did you respond?”
“No.”
Her voice sounded wrong.
Too quiet.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Are your doors locked?”
“Yes.”
“The windows?”
“Yes, Cole.”
I stood from the edge of my bed and pulled on my jeans.
“Send me the full screenshot.”
“I already did.”
“I want the number header and timestamp.”
“It’s blocked. It always is.”
“Send it anyway.”
She sighed.
A second later, my phone vibrated.
The number was unavailable, just as she had said.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Writing.”
“At midnight?”
“I didn’t know grief had office hours.”
“What are you writing?”
Silence.
“Harper.”
“A letter.”
My stomach tightened.
“What kind of letter?”
“To Natalie.”
“No.”
The answer came before I could soften it.
Her voice sharpened. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“You’re not contacting her.”
“I haven’t sent it.”
“Good. Don’t.”
“She deserves the truth.”
“She deserves to sleep without receiving a confession from her dead husband’s mistress.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than the words deserved.
I closed my eyes.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
Maybe I had.
That didn’t make it necessary.
“I’m trying to keep this from getting worse.”
“For her.”
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
The line went quiet.
I grabbed my keys.
“Don’t go anywhere.”
“Why?”
“Because someone knows where Gavin was, what he told both of you, and now what you found in the storage unit.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“No.”
“This isn’t a discussion.”
“Then have it with yourself.”
She ended the call.
I stared at the screen.
Then I left anyway.
---
Harper opened the door before I knocked a second time.
She wore an oversized shirt and sleep shorts. Her hair was loose around her face, and her eyes were swollen.
“You don’t listen,” she said.
“Neither do you.”
“I told you not to come.”
“And I told you not to contact Natalie.”
“I didn’t.”
“Yet.”
She stepped aside reluctantly.
The apartment looked different.
Cleaner.
Emptier.
The shirt that had hung over the chair was gone. So was the toothbrush beside the sink.
A cardboard box sat open on the bedroom floor.
Harper noticed me looking.
“I packed his things.”
“That’s good.”
Her expression hardened.
“I didn’t do it for your approval.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“You never have to.”
She walked back to the kitchen table.
A notebook lay open beside her phone. The first page had been torn out. On the second, Natalie’s name appeared at the top.
I stopped near the doorway.
“You can’t send that.”
“You haven’t read it.”
“I don’t need to.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Harper, whatever you write will become something Natalie has to carry.”
“She already carries everything else.”
“That doesn’t mean you add yourself.”
She looked at me.
“I was already added. Gavin did that.”
The answer left no room for denial.
I moved closer to the table.
“What does the message mean?”
“I thought you could tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“She knew my name.”
“That’s what the sender claims.”
“And she let him keep coming back.”
“You don’t know who *she* is.”
Harper gave me a look.
“Do you honestly believe it means someone other than Natalie?”
“No.”
The admission came reluctantly.
Her fingers closed around the pen.
“So she knew.”
“Maybe.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Gavin ever say she knew who I was?”
“No.”
“He told me she only suspected.”
“That’s what he told me too.”
Harper laughed bitterly.
“At least he was consistent.”
I looked at the screenshot again.
The sender wanted Harper focused on Natalie.
That could mean Natalie was responsible.
Or it could mean someone wanted Harper to believe she was.
“Don’t confront her,” I said.
“She deserves to know I’m sorry.”
“She doesn’t need your apology tonight.”
“When does she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You always have an answer until the answer is inconvenient.”
My jaw tightened.
“And you always demand the truth as if you didn’t ignore it when it was standing in front of you.”
The words landed hard.
Harper stared at me.
I should have stopped there.
Instead, grief and exhaustion kept speaking.
“You knew he had a wife. You saw his children. You stood across the street and watched him with them, and you still went home with him.”
Her face lost what little color remained.
“How do you know about the café?”
I froze.
Gavin had told me.
Not as a confession.
As a complaint.
He had called me that night and said Harper had almost exposed everything by appearing near the children.
He had made it sound like she had followed him.
“I knew you saw them,” I said.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“He told me.”
“What did he say?”
I looked away.
“Cole.”
“He said you showed up while he was with the kids.”
“I was already there.”
“I know that now.”
“He made it sound like I followed him?”
I didn’t answer.
Her eyes filled, but her voice stayed steady.
“Even to you.”
“What?”
“He lied about me even to you.”
The anger left her face.
That was worse.
She lowered herself into the chair and looked at the unfinished letter.
“I keep finding new versions of myself in the stories he told other people.”
I had no answer for that.
Because Gavin had done the same to all of us.
To Natalie, Harper was a mistake he had ended.
To Harper, Natalie was a cold wife refusing to release him.
To me, both women understood enough that I didn’t need to interfere.
He had made every person responsible for the lie except himself.
Harper wiped her cheek quickly.
“Go home.”
“I’m not leaving until we know you’re safe.”
“I’m safe.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.”
Her phone vibrated on the table.
We both looked at it.
Another message.
**He kept one phone for his family and another for you.**
Harper’s gaze lifted to mine.
“That’s not true.”
I wanted to agree.
Then I remembered something from Gavin’s locker.
A charger that didn’t match his phone.
A small black case I had assumed held medical supplies.
And the night before the fire, when I had seen him remove a second phone from his duffel bag.
I had thought it belonged to the station.
My silence gave me away.
Harper stood.
“What do you know?”
“Nothing yet.”
“You recognized something.”
“I said I don’t know.”
She moved closer.
“Where is it?”
“If there was another phone, the department or Natalie has it.”
“Then find it.”
“I can’t search his wife’s house.”
“You search everything else when it suits you.”
“This isn’t about what suits me.”
“No. It’s about protecting Natalie from every truth she might not want while I’m expected to survive all of them.”
Her anger filled the small kitchen.
For once, I didn’t fight it.
Because she was right about one thing.
Someone had decided Harper should inherit every lie Gavin left behind.
And I was beginning to suspect they weren’t finished.
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