Chapter 6: What Diane Knew
She agreed to meet me alone.
Not at the family house, not at mine.
A coffee shop on the far side of town, the kind of place neither of us would normally go.
She was already there when I arrived, seated at a corner table with her coat still on, both hands around a cup she wasn't drinking from.
Diane was three years older than Daniel.
She had her father's eyes and her mother's posture — straight-backed, guarded, like she was always prepared to stand up and leave.
We had never been close.
In seven years, we had exchanged maybe two hundred words that weren't required by a family occasion.
I sat down across from her.
"Thank you for coming," she said.
"Thank you for texting," I said.
"What did you want to tell me?"
She looked at her cup.
"I want to say something first.
About Christmas."
"All right."
"I should have said something.
When she — when it happened.
I should have said something and I didn't, and I've been sick about it since." She looked up.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me for that.
I just needed to say it."
I held her gaze.
"I hear you."
She nodded once, quickly, like she was filing it away.
"My mother has been talking to someone.
A man named Russell Holt.
He's done work for her before — not legal work.
More like...
finding things.
Information."
"What kind of information?"
"About you." She wrapped her hands tighter around the cup.
"She asked him to look into your background.
Your finances.
Your family.
She's looking for something she can use."
I kept my face still.
"Has he found anything?"
"I don't know what he's found.
I only know she's been on the phone with him every day since Christmas.
I overheard two calls.
She mentioned your name, your maiden name, something about a property in — she said Ohio.
Did you own something in Ohio?"
My stomach tightened.
"My grandmother left me a small property when she died.
I sold it before Daniel and I got married.
It was a straightforward sale."
"Was there anything complicated about it?
Anything that could be made to look complicated?"
I thought about it carefully.
The sale had gone through an estate attorney.
Everything had been documented.
There had been a dispute with a cousin over the inheritance, but it had been settled cleanly, in writing, before the sale closed.
"There was a family dispute," I said.
"It was resolved.
Legally.
Years ago."
Diane pressed her lips together.
"My mother is very good at taking something resolved and making it look unresolved.
Especially to people who don't know the full story."
"Why are you telling me this?"
She was quiet for a moment.
A couple at the next table laughed at something.
Outside, a car horn sounded twice and went silent.
"Because I watched her do it to someone else once," Diane said.
"A long time ago.
Before you.
There was a woman Daniel dated seriously — before you, years before.
Her name was Kara.
My mother didn't approve.
She found something in Kara's past, something small and old and meaningless, and she made it into something that destroyed the relationship." She looked at me directly.
"Daniel never knew she did it.
He thought Kara just left."
The coffee shop felt very quiet suddenly.
"He doesn't know?" I said.
"No."
"Does Kara know?"
"Kara moved away.
I don't know where she is now." Diane set her cup down.
"I was twenty-three when it happened.
I told myself it wasn't my business.
I told myself a lot of things." A pause.
"I'm forty-one now.
I'm done telling myself things."
I sat with that for a moment.
"I need to tell Daniel," I said.
"I know.
That's why I'm telling you." She reached into her coat pocket and slid a folded piece of paper across the table.
"That's Russell Holt's name and his business address.
I wrote down what I remembered from the phone calls.
It's not much, but it might help your attorney."
I picked up the paper.
"Diane.
Does your father know about any of this?"
Something moved across her face.
"Dad knows more than he lets on.
He always has.
That's his way of surviving her." She stood up and pulled her coat tighter.
"Tell him I said hello.
And tell him — tell him I'm sorry it took me this long."
She left without finishing her coffee.
I sat at the corner table for a few minutes after she was gone, the folded paper in my hand, the noise of the coffee shop coming back in around me.
Then I took out my phone and called Carol Vance.
May you like
"I have a name," I said.
"And I think I know what Patricia is planning."
