Part 4 — On a Rainy Night Emily Asked Me to Take Her Home, but One Question of Mine Suddenly Changed Her Face

We found the recording left in Daniel’s car that same night.

Moren sent two officers to the parking lot beneath the old bridge. The car was standing there, its headlights off, while raindrops ran down the windshield.

Daniel was nowhere to be seen.

His phone lay on the driver’s seat. In the trunk they found a black bag containing bank statements, insurance policies, and a small recording device.

The last recording on the device was still open.

Moren put on headphones.

I watched his face.

After a few seconds he lowered his eyes.

“You have to hear this,” he told me.

“What is it?”

“You will hear it yourself.”

He put the recorder on the table and turned it on.

Daniel’s voice sounded.

“Emily, sign and everything will be over.”

Then Emily’s voice, frightened and hoarse:

“This is my mother’s house. You have no right to anything.”

“I have the right to what saved you. I also took care of your sister when you disappeared.”

“You stole the money.”

There was silence for several seconds.

Then Daniel chuckled.

“Everyone needs money. And your mother had enough to hide one extra child.”

The sound of a chair moving was heard in the recording.

“Jake knows nothing,” Emily said.

“That is exactly why he has to come. If he finds out that he is Marisa’s son, everything will change in court. But if he signs that he renounces the inheritance, we will both be free.”

“I will not touch him.”

“You already have. You are taking him with you in the car. When he goes to the police in the morning, I will tell everyone that he broke in here after your mother’s death and stole the documents.”

The recording ended there.

No one spoke.

I was strangely calm. As if I had been waiting all night for my life to be shattered once more, but there was nothing left to shatter.

Emily stood beside me.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“I involved you in all this.”

“You are the only person who that night did not consider the back seat of my car a home.”

Tears appeared in her eyes.

“Then I’ll take you home.”

“Our home,” I corrected her.

The temporary court order really arrived in the morning. Daniel’s lawyer, Nolan, stood at the door holding a folded document.

“My client is claiming rights to this house,” he said.

Moren placed the recording and the documents on the table.

“Your client is also facing a criminal case.”

Nolan looked over the documents. His face slowly turned pale.

“Daniel told me everything was legal.”

“Then let him explain it to the judge himself.”

Nolan took out his phone and called Daniel.

“Daniel, where are you?”

For a long time no one answered on the other end.

Then a barely audible voice sounded:

“Don’t return to the car.”

Nolan closed his eyes.

“I am no longer taking part in this case,” he said. “My fee is not worth losing my freedom.”

That same day Daniel was found south of the city, at a bus station. He had planned to escape to another city, but a woman cashier recognized his photograph.

When the officers put handcuffs on him, Daniel said only one thing:

“You have no idea what you are doing.”

Moren answered:

“No. For the first time, we know exactly what we are doing.”

Several days later Daniel came to the station once more for questioning. I was not supposed to be there this time, but Moren told me that the most important part of the recording was still ahead.

They put headphones on Daniel.

He heard his own voice.

“Everyone needs money. And your mother had enough to hide one extra child.”

His face changed.

For the first time he could not endure his own words.

“This is taken out of context,” he said.

“Which part?” Moren asked him. “The threat or the confession?”

“I did not kill Marisa.”

“We did not say that either.”

Daniel fell silent.

His own language gave away what no one had yet asked him.

When I returned home, I entered Lea’s room. Her yellow plastic bird lay on the bed. Its broken wing was still in place, though Emily had attached a small piece of adhesive tape beside it.

“I bought her a new bird,” Emily told me from the doorway.

“Why didn’t you throw this one away?”

“Because Lea said that surviving things can need repairs too.”

My old bag stood in the corner of the bedroom. Three weeks earlier it had held only two shirts and a toothbrush. Now it contained clean shirts, books, and my mother’s letter.

But the empty garage seemed strangest to me.

My car was no longer standing there as a nighttime hiding place.

The folded blanket was no longer on the back seat.

I moved the blanket into my mother’s house and folded it by the window. It had a small brown stain on its edge that I could not remove. Before, I saw that stain as evidence of shame. Now it resembled the memory of the night when I admitted for the first time that I could no longer endure being alone.

Three weeks later the court accepted the case materials against Daniel. The forged signatures were confirmed by an examination. The bank statements showed that he had transferred money from Marisa’s account. The recording proved that he had threatened Emily and Lea.

In court I was not happy about his defeat.

When the judge announced the decision, Emily simply took my hand. Her fingers were no longer trembling.

We kept the house.

Not because it was large or luxurious. On the contrary. The floor on the second story creaked, the kitchen faucet dripped, and in winter the wind came through the windows.

But there we locked the door from the inside.

I found a job at a small auto-repair workshop on the other side of the river. I woke at six in the morning, made coffee, and walked Lea to school.

At first she asked me nothing about my past. Only once, on a cold November morning when the first snow fell on the street, she told me:

“Jake, will you stay here now?”

I bent down beside her.

“If you want me to.”

“Then stay.”

That was stronger than any court decision.

At night Emily left a small lamp on in the kitchen. She said that a person returning home should not have to look for the door in the dark.

Sometimes she still woke in fear when she heard the sound of car brakes. I poured her water and asked nothing.

Sometimes I also woke because I thought I was still on the back seat of the car. Then I looked at the ceiling and realized that I was in a room that had my name.

Two months later a letter came from Daniel.

Emily put the envelope on the kitchen table.

“Will you open it?”

“No.”

“It may be something important.”

“I have already heard his important words.”

My name was written on the envelope. The handwriting was careless. Inside there was only one page.

“You can start everything over if you change your testimony against us. You have no place in this house. Marisa never wanted you to return.”

I looked at the sentence for a long time.

Then I folded the sheet in half.

“What will you answer?” Emily asked.

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

I put the sheet in the trash bin.

“For the first time, I am.”

That evening Lea gave me a drawing. Three people stood in front of a small house. One held a yellow bird, another a copper-colored key, and the third a large umbrella.

“This is us,” she told me.

“Why am I holding the umbrella?”

“Because it was raining that night and you still came.”

We attached the drawing to the refrigerator.

Then we went out into the yard. Snow was quietly falling on the steps. Emily locked the door and took the copper-colored key out of the lock. The moon-shaped pendant shimmered lightly under the streetlamp.

Three weeks earlier this key had belonged to her fear.

Now it protected the house.

I did not run toward the car anymore.

The moon pendant grew warm in my palm.

And for the first time in my life I knew where I was supposed to sleep.