Questions that Refused to Sleep
713 Words
CHAPTER FOUR: Questions That Refuse to Sleep
Nathaniel Blackwood did not sleep that night.
He sat in the back seat of his car as the city lights blurred past the tinted windows, his phone resting heavily in his palm. Maryann’s last message replayed in his mind like a warning he was too stubborn to obey.
Some truths don’t set you free. They ruin everything.
He exhaled slowly.
She had always tried to protect people by carrying pain alone. He saw it now—clearly. The fear in her eyes hadn’t been guilt. It had been terror.
And terror always had a cause.
“Turn around,” he said quietly to the driver.
“Sir?” the man asked.
“I need to make a stop.”
By morning, Nathaniel was standing in front of a modest apartment building on the east side of town. It wasn’t hard to find where Maryann lived. He hadn’t followed her—he had simply asked the right questions. Years of success had taught him that information always left a trail.
What unsettled him was how carefully she had erased herself.
No social media presence worth mentioning. No professional footprint beyond a small nonprofit she volunteered with. No family records linked to her current address.
It was as if she had rebuilt her life from fragments.
Nathaniel leaned against his car, jaw tight.
People didn’t disappear like that unless they were hiding.
Later that afternoon, he sat across from a private investigator in a quiet office downtown.
“Her name is Maryann Collins,” Nathaniel said. “But I’m not convinced that’s the whole truth.”
The investigator, a middle-aged woman with sharp eyes, scrolled through files on her screen.
“You’re right to question it,” she replied. “She changed her last name legally about six years ago. Before that, records are… thin.”
“How thin?”
“School transfers. Gaps. An emergency relocation request filed but never explained.”
Nathaniel’s hands curled into fists.
“Family?”
The investigator hesitated.
“There’s a stepfather listed. Marcus Hale. No recent records, but…” She paused, then looked up. “He has a history.”
Nathaniel’s gaze sharpened. “What kind of history?”
“Restraining orders. Domestic disturbance calls. Nothing that stuck long enough to put him away.”
The air in the room shifted.
Nathaniel leaned back slowly, his heart pounding with a rage he hadn’t felt in years. Images from the flashback Amara had never told him—but he could now imagine—flooded his mind.
The rain.
The fear.
The way she ran.
“She didn’t leave me,” he said quietly. “She escaped.”
The investigator nodded once. “That’s what it looks like.”
Across the city, Maryann sat at her kitchen table, a mug of cold tea untouched before her.
She felt it again—that strange heaviness in her chest. The kind that came before storms. The kind that told her something was shifting, whether she was ready or not.
Her phone rang.
She stared at the screen.
Nathaniel.
Her first instinct was to let it ring. Her second was to throw the phone across the room. Instead, she answered.
“Maryann,” his voice said gently, stripped of accusation. “I need you to listen to me.”
Her throat tightened. “Nathaniel… please don’t do this.”
“Did your stepfather hurt you?” he asked.
Silence crashed between them.
The world seemed to tilt.
“How did you—” Her voice broke. “You promised you wouldn’t dig.”
“I promised I wouldn’t give up,” he replied. “And I won’t. Not again.”
Tears slid down her cheeks as years of fear pressed against her ribs.
“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “If he knows you’re asking questions—”
“Then he’ll answer to me,” Nathaniel said, his tone steel beneath calm. “You’re not alone anymore, Maryann. You never should have been.”
She covered her mouth with her hand, shaking.
This was the moment she had feared more than any other.
Because once Nathaniel knew the full truth…
There would be no turning back.
And some pasts didn’t stay buried without a fight.
- Writer
