Chapter 6 - The Recipe Book
I dropped beside the hospital bed.
The man pulled something black from beneath his scrubs.
For one terrifying second, I thought it was a gun.
Then he raised it.
A compact electronic stun device.
He lunged toward Rachel.
I grabbed the rolling bedside table and shoved it into his knees.
The impact sent him stumbling.
The device discharged against the metal bedrail with a sharp crack.
Rachel screamed again.
I scrambled toward the emergency call button.
The man grabbed my hair.
Pain shot across my scalp.
"Where is it?" he snarled.
I clawed at his wrist.
"Get off me!"
"Where's the archive?"
I twisted and drove my elbow backward.
He grunted.
The pressure on my hair loosened.
I slammed my palm against the call button.
A nurse shouted outside.
The man looked toward the doorway.
Then he shoved me against the wall and ran.
I hit the floor hard.
By the time security arrived, he was gone.
Rachel was sobbing.
I crawled toward her.
"I'm okay," I gasped.
She shook her head.
"He found me again."
Sergeant Torres arrived within minutes.
Hospital security began reviewing footage.
Eliam rushed into the room, his face gray.
"What happened?"
I turned toward him.
"One of the men who attacked Rachel came back."
He looked at the bruising beginning to form along my cheek.
"Did he hurt you?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine."
"Don't."
He stopped.
I pointed toward Rachel.
"She needs protection. Actual protection. Not another promise that everything will work out."
Torres nodded.
"We're assigning an officer outside her room and arranging a transfer to a secure location."
Rachel watched her carefully.
"Can I trust you?"
The question hung in the air.
Torres didn't look offended.
"You don't know me," she said. "So I won't ask you to trust me blindly. But I'm documenting everything, and I'm involving investigators outside the local department."
Rachel studied her.
Then nodded once.
I liked Torres immediately.
She didn't demand trust.
She understood it had to be earned.
An hour later, Eliam and I sat in a hospital consultation room.
Neither of us spoke.
Finally, he said, "I should have told you."
"Yes."
"I thought keeping the truth from you would protect you."
"You didn't protect me. You took away my choices."
He looked down.
"I know."
"Did you ever plan to tell me Rachel was alive?"
He took a long time to answer.
"At first, yes."
"And later?"
"I became afraid you'd leave me when you found out how long I'd waited."
I laughed bitterly.
"So you kept lying because the consequences of telling the truth got worse?"
He nodded.
I stared at him.
"That might be the first completely honest thing you've said today."
Tears filled his eyes.
"I love you, Mara."
I looked away.
"I don't know what to do with that right now."
He accepted the answer.
For once, he didn't try to fix it.
I stood.
"I'm going home."
"I'll come with you."
"No."
"Mara, it's not safe."
"Then call Torres and ask her to send someone."
He started to argue.
I cut him off.
"If you want to help me, stop making decisions for me."
He closed his mouth.
I left.
Natalie met me outside the hospital.
The moment she saw my bruised cheek, her expression changed.
"Who did that?"
I told her.
She swore so fiercely that a passing nurse turned around.
Then she hugged me.
I held on longer than usual.
"I need to get something from home," I said.
"What?"
"My mother's recipe book."
Natalie drove.
I called Torres from the car.
She arranged for an officer to meet us at the house.
By the time we arrived, twilight was settling over the neighborhood.
Our porch lights were on.
Everything looked peaceful.
I hated how ordinary the house appeared.
Inside, the officer checked the main rooms before allowing us to enter.
The basement smelled like cardboard and old paint.
I found the boxes marked MOM near the back wall.
There were Christmas decorations, handwritten letters, photographs, and a porcelain angel with one broken wing.
I lifted the angel carefully.
My mother had loved that ugly thing.
Every year, she put it on top of the piano and insisted it was beautiful.
I remembered Rachel laughing about it.
I remembered Mom pretending to be offended.
For a moment, grief caught me by surprise.
Then I found the recipe book.
Yellow cover.
Frayed corners.
A faded picture of a lemon pie.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Inside were recipes for meatloaf, chicken soup, peach cobbler, and the cinnamon rolls she'd made every Sunday.
Her handwriting filled the pages.
I pressed my fingers against the ink.
Natalie sat beside me.
"Anything?"
"Not yet."
We turned the pages carefully.
Near the back, I found an envelope taped beneath the cardboard cover.
It was thin.
Brown.
Sealed.
My name was written across the front.
MARA.
I stopped breathing.
Natalie looked at me.
"Open it."
I peeled back the flap.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
The date was twelve days before my mother's death.
My dearest Mara,
If you're reading this, I probably failed to do the one thing I should have done years ago.
I should have protected you and Rachel from your father.
My eyes burned.
Arthur is not the man you believe he is. I have found evidence of what he's done, and I am frightened of what will happen when he discovers it.
I don't know whom to trust. I don't even know whether the police will help.
But there is something I need you to understand.
You are not responsible for the choices your father makes.
Neither is Rachel.
Whatever happens next, promise me you will never let him turn the two of you against each other.
I pressed the letter against my chest.
For years, I'd believed my mother died without knowing how fractured our family would become.
She'd known.
She'd seen it coming.
I continued reading.
The truth is in the place where I hid the things I wanted you girls to find only when you were old enough to understand.
Remember our Christmas tradition.
Remember the angel.
And remember that even broken wings can carry a message.
I looked at the porcelain angel.
Natalie followed my gaze.
"Oh my God."
I picked it up.
One wing was missing.
The break had always bothered me.
Mom refused to repair it.
She said some things were beautiful because they'd survived.
I turned the angel over.
Beneath the base was a tiny circular plug.
I worked it loose with a butter knife.
Something rattled inside.
A small brass key fell into my palm.
Attached to it was a paper tag.
214\.
Northline Storage.
The unit Rachel had rented.
I stared at the key.
Then I noticed a second item inside the angel.
A tiny roll of paper.
I unfolded it.
There was only one sentence.
If Arthur finds out what I've done, ask Mara why she was really taken to St. Catherine's Hospital on October 17.
I read the words three times.
October 17.
The date meant nothing to me.
Natalie looked over my shoulder.
"How old were you?"
I counted backward.
"Sixteen."
"What happened that day?"
"I don't remember."
But as soon as I said it, an image flashed through my mind.
Rain against a windshield.
My father's voice.
A hospital hallway.
Someone screaming.
I dropped the paper.
And suddenly I remembered something I hadn't thought about in twenty years.
May you like
I hadn't been sick when Dad took me to St. Catherine's.
I'd been bleeding.
