Chapter 3 - A Door With No Address
By morning, the doctors were satisfied that my symptoms had settled, though they ordered rest and careful follow-up. Vincent arranged for me to stay in a quiet guest apartment with a nurse available if needed. He didn't ask me to return to work. He told the house manager that my pay and benefits would continue while I recovered.
Detective Mara Ellis came to speak with me. She was a Chicago investigator with a patient voice and eyes that missed very little. Unlike Richard Sterling, she didn't treat the Moretti name as an answer to every question.
"Daniel's death was ruled an accident," she said. "But the records have inconsistencies. A witness withdrew a statement. A safety report was amended. We are reopening the inquiry."
I handed over a copy of the photograph. Mara examined the handwriting and asked whether Daniel had ever mentioned an orchard. I remembered a road trip we'd taken during our first autumn together. We'd stopped at a farm stand beside a weathered sign shaped like an apple. Daniel had gone quiet when a woman approached with a little girl.
"He said he knew her brother," I recalled. "We left without buying anything."
Vincent brought in a map of northern Illinois. There were dozens of orchards. But Daniel had kept an old gas receipt inside the wallet, folded so tightly I had mistaken it for a scrap. The merchant line read Bellwether Orchard, near Rockford.
Mara warned us not to go there ourselves. "If a child is involved, we need a safe plan, not an armed convoy."
Vincent agreed. I saw how difficult it was for him. A man accustomed to commanding a room was being asked to wait while strangers protected his daughter.
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That evening an envelope appeared beneath my door. There was no stamp. Inside lay a hospital bracelet with my name printed on it and a date from before Daniel's death. Beneath it was a photograph of me sleeping in an examination chair.
On the back, someone had written: YOUR HUSBAND DIDN'T TELL YOU WHO PAID FOR THE TEST.
