Chapter 7 - The Bus Station

Nora called the nonemergency police line to report the troubling messages and the car outside. Nathan arranged for a neighbor to stay with Lucy. He hated leaving her again, even for an hour.

"You're coming back?" she asked when he kissed her forehead.

"Yes. And Nora stays right here."

At the bus station, the fluorescent lights hummed over empty benches. A cleaner pushed a cart past a row of vending machines. Rosa was nowhere in sight.

Nathan called her number. A phone rang from inside a trash can near the ticket window. He pulled out a cracked handset.

"That's not good," Nora said.

They asked the station clerk whether he'd seen a woman in a blue coat. He had. She had hurried out through the north doors with a tall man following several yards behind.

"Did she look like she was with him?" Nathan asked.

"No. She looked like she wanted to lose him."

Near the north exit, Nathan found a folded grocery receipt caught beneath the leg of a bench. He almost left it until he noticed a word written in the margin: HANNAH.

On the back was a hurried message: STORAGE 214. MONDAY. ASK FOR LENA.

Nora took a photograph. "We should get this to the police with the phone. Don't chase anyone."

Nathan nodded, though his hands were tight fists. They gave the evidence to the responding officer, then returned home. The silver sedan had gone.

At breakfast, Lucy asked for a bowl of cereal. When Nora set it on the kitchen table, Lucy hesitated.

"I can really sit here?"

Nathan pulled out a chair. "You can sit anywhere in this house."

Lucy ate quietly. Halfway through, she said, "Rosa used to give me extra food when Grandma sent me away. They fired her yesterday."

"Did Grandma say why?"

"Because Rosa wouldn't sign something."

Nora and Nathan exchanged looks.

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A delivery van stopped outside. The driver left a brown envelope on the porch without ringing. Inside was a copy of a medical report, stamped CONFIDENTIAL, with Hannah Bennett's name across the top.

Someone had highlighted a single phrase and written beneath it: Ask why your wife changed her will two days before she died.