Chapter 7: What Catherine Left Behind
The police came at nine-forty.
There were two of them — a detective named Hargrove and a younger officer who took notes and said very little.
Richard met them in the study and walked them through everything in order: the footage, the documents, the jewelry, Cara's statement.
Detective Hargrove was a quiet man with a way of listening that made you feel like every word was being filed carefully somewhere.
He watched forty seconds of the security footage and set the tablet down.
"How old is your daughter, Mr.
Sterling?"
"Six."
"Is she in the house now?"
"Yes.
With my housekeeper."
"We'll need to speak with her.
With your permission, and with you present."
"Of course."
They spoke with Sophie in the guest suite, seated on the floor with her, which Richard noted.
Hargrove let Sophie lead.
He asked simple questions and waited through the long pauses without filling them.
Sophie told him about the room.
About the mat.
About the nights when she was hungry and the door wouldn't open no matter how many times she knocked.
She told him about the bracelet.
"Miss Vanessa found Mommy's box," Sophie said.
"I saw her.
I told her those were Mommy's things and she said Mommy didn't need them anymore."
Hargrove glanced at Richard once.
Then back at Sophie.
"Did you tell anyone else what you saw?"
"I told Mrs.
Howell."
"What did Mrs.
Howell say?"
"She said she would take care of it." Sophie looked at her hands.
"But then Miss Vanessa said Mrs.
Howell was lying and I shouldn't listen to her.
And then she put me in the room."
Richard kept his face still.
It took everything he had.
After the police left with Vanessa — who walked out without speaking, without looking back, her lawyer on the phone before she reached the car — the house went quiet in a way it hadn't been quiet in a very long time.
Mrs.
Howell made lunch.
Sophie ate at the kitchen table, properly, with a full plate, and asked for seconds.
Richard sat across from her and watched her eat and didn't say much.
"Daddy," Sophie said, around a mouthful of buttered toast, "are we going to get a new dog bowl?"
He blinked.
"What?"
"For Max.
His bowl is the one I ate from.
I think he should get a new one."
Richard looked at her for a moment.
Then something in his chest loosened — just slightly — for the first time in twenty-four hours.
"We'll get Max a new bowl," he said.
"A good one.
With his name on it."
"With his name on it."
Sophie nodded, satisfied, and went back to her toast.
After lunch, Richard went upstairs to the third floor.
To the jewelry room.
He unlocked it and stood in the doorway.
Catherine's things were arranged the way she had left them.
Her jewelry organized in velvet-lined drawers.
A small framed photo on the shelf — the two of them on their honeymoon, laughing at something neither of them could remember afterward.
A letter in her handwriting, sealed, with his name on the front.
He had never opened it.
She had given it to her lawyer with instructions to place it in the jewelry room after she was gone.
He had known it was here for four years.
He had never been able to make himself cross the room and pick it up.
He crossed the room now.
He sat down in the small chair by the window and held the envelope for a long time before he opened it.
*Richard,*
*If you're reading this, enough time has passed.
I hope it has, anyway.
I hope you gave yourself time to be sad before you tried to be strong again.
I know you.
You'll have tried to be strong too soon.*
*I need to ask you something, and I need you to hear it the way I mean it — not as a warning, not as a judgment.
Just as me, knowing you, loving you, asking.*
*Please be careful who you let into Sophie's life.
Not because I don't trust you.
Because I know how much you want her to have what we had.
And I know that wanting can make a person stop looking clearly.*
*You will know the right person when you find them.
Not because they are perfect.
Because Sophie will reach for them.*
*Watch who she reaches for.*
*I love you both more than this letter can hold.*
*Catherine*
Richard folded the letter carefully and put it back in the envelope.
He sat in the chair by the window for a long time.
Sophie's voice drifted up from somewhere below — she was talking to Max, telling him about his new bowl, describing exactly what she wanted it to look like.
May you like
Richard listened to her voice until it settled something in him that had been unsettled for a very long time.
Then he stood up, put the letter in his jacket pocket, and went downstairs to his daughter.
