Chapter 05 - Daniel’s Hands

Dr. Kline arrived at half past midnight wearing navy scrubs, rain in her hair, and the expression of a woman who had been woken for reasons she knew better than to question.

She took one look at Dominic’s brace and cursed like a dockworker.

That was when I decided I liked her.

“Who installed this replacement hinge?” she asked.

Dr. Harris was no longer in the room to answer. Serafina was being entertained, as Dominic put it, in the blue salon by men who did not entertain anybody. The house had shifted around us, quiet but awake, as if every wall had learned to listen.

Dominic sat in a second chair while Dr. Kline inspected the inner mechanism.

“Harris oversaw the last service.”

“This isn’t a service part.”

“No?”

“No. It’s handmade.”

Ellie, half-asleep against my side, lifted her head.

“Like Daddy’s prototypes.”

Dr. Kline turned. “Who is Daddy?”

I said nothing.

Dominic answered for me.

“Daniel Voss.”

The doctor’s hands stopped.

“You knew him?” Dominic asked.

“I knew his work.”

She removed the hinge casing with careful movements and held it under a magnifying lamp. A tiny mark was stamped along the metal: DV-14.

My chest tightened so fast I had to sit down.

Daniel used to mark everything he built. Not because he was vain, but because he believed machines should have memory. DV for Daniel Voss. Numbers for the design attempt. He once joked that if he ever became famous, museums would argue over his failures.

“He made that,” I whispered.

Dr. Kline nodded slowly.

“This hinge was never filed down. It’s perfectly made. Stronger than the manufactured pieces around it.”

Dominic looked at Ellie.

“She saw it didn’t belong.”

“It doesn’t,” the doctor said. “But it wasn’t meant to hurt you. If anything, this part kept the sabotage from succeeding sooner.”

Dominic’s gaze moved to me.

“Your husband protected my leg five years after his death.”

I wanted to reject the sentence. It sounded impossible, dramatic, like something from the kind of movie Daniel and I could never afford to see in theaters. But the mark was there. DV-14. His hands had shaped that metal. My daughter had recognized its honesty among all the lies.

“Why would Daniel’s hinge be in your brace?” I asked.

Dominic did not answer immediately.

Dr. Kline placed the part in a tray.

“Romano Recovery bought several prototype designs before the company shuttered its adaptive division. Some pieces disappeared after the south dock fire.”

“Warehouse fire,” I said.

She looked at me.

My voice changed.

“My husband died in a workshop fire. You keep talking about a dock fire. Are they connected?”

Dominic’s silence answered before he did.

“We believed Daniel sold designs to Rafael D’Agostino,” he said.

The words hit me like a slap.

“No.”

“I didn’t know him then.”

“No.”

“Mara.”

“Do not say my name like you have the right to soften this.”

Dominic accepted that. He did not apologize yet. Perhaps he understood apology would be too small.

“What happened?” I demanded.

“The night of the dock fire, security found Daniel’s access credentials in a restricted warehouse. A prototype shipment had been opened. Rafael’s men were there. The building burned before my father could recover what was taken.”

“Daniel was home that night.”

“Are you certain?”

The question was careful.

I hated him for it.

“He read Ellie a story. She had a fever. He slept on the nursery floor.”

Ellie rubbed her eyes.

“Daddy sang the fish song.”

Her sleepy little voice cut through everything.

Dominic looked away first.

Dr. Kline cleared her throat gently.

“If Daniel was home, someone else used his credentials.”

My hands curled in my lap.

“Who accused him?”

Dominic hesitated.

Then he said, “My father.”

The dead have a way of remaining powerful in rooms where their names are feared. Dominic’s father had been gone two years, according to staff whispers, but I felt him then. A shadow wearing authority. A man still ruining my husband because nobody had bothered to question him.

Dr. Kline finished stabilizing Dominic’s leg with a temporary brace.

“You should not stand tonight.”

Dominic’s mouth tightened.

“I heard you.”

“That is not agreement.”

“It rarely is.”

The doctor gave me a dry look, as if we were allies in the exhausting business of keeping powerful men from worsening their injuries.

When she left to prepare imaging equipment, Dominic turned to me.

“I will find out who used your husband’s name.”

“I don’t need you to fix my past.”

“No.”

His eyes held mine.

“But someone is using your daughter to unlock it.”

That stopped every argument in my throat.

A guard entered carrying a clear plastic bin. Ellie’s stuffed bunny sat on top, damp but unharmed. Beneath it were clothes, a school folder, Daniel’s old tool box, and a framed photograph from our kitchen wall.

Ellie reached for Bunny. I reached for the tool box.

The little metal latch was bent, but not broken.

I opened it.

Inside were screwdrivers, measuring tape, a folded baseball ticket, and Daniel’s old pocket flashlight. Everything I remembered.

Except for one thing.

A brass key lay beneath the foam insert.

I had never seen it before.

Attached to it was a strip of masking tape in Daniel’s handwriting.

If they come for Ellie, take her to the wolf.

I looked at Dominic.

The room seemed to lose air.

Because my dead husband had not warned me to run from the man with the wolf in his house.

He had told me to find him.