Chapter 5 - THE WARNING NORA NEVER HEARD
Melissa arrived at the hospital shortly after seven.
She hugged Nora first.
Then stopped outside Leo's room and asked permission before entering.
That small gesture almost broke Nora.
Because her sister, whom Greg had described for years as interfering and dramatic, was careful not to frighten Leo.
Greg had never been careful.
Melissa sat in the family waiting area with a paper cup of coffee untouched between her hands.
"Two months before your wedding," she began, "Greg came to my apartment."
Nora frowned.
"You never told me that."
"I tried."
"When?"
"The next morning. Then three more times."
Nora remembered.
Or rather, she remembered Greg's version.
Melissa had become jealous.
Melissa did not want Nora happy.
Melissa resented Nora moving on after Aaron.
"I called you," Melissa continued. "Greg answered your phone twice. He said you were sleeping. Then you texted me telling me to stop interfering."
"I sent that?"
Melissa pulled out her phone.
She still had screenshots.
Nora read the message.
Stop trying to ruin this for me. Greg is my family now. I need you to respect that or stay away.
The words looked vaguely like her.
Not exactly.
But close enough that Melissa had believed them.
"I didn't write this."
"I know that now."
"What did Greg say when he came to your apartment?"
Melissa glanced toward Room 4.
"He asked how much money Aaron left Leo."
Nora stared.
"What?"
"I thought it was strange. He made it sound casual. Said he wanted to understand your finances before marriage."
"Why didn't you—"
"I did, Nora."
Melissa's voice sharpened for the first time.
"I told you. At least I thought I did."
Nora looked down.
Greg had been present when Melissa mentioned finances over lunch.
Nora suddenly remembered him laughing.
Your sister thinks I'm marrying you for your fishing fortune.
There had been no fortune.
Aaron had left a small life insurance payment that mostly covered funeral costs and old debts.
The survivor benefit belonged to Leo.
That was all.
Melissa continued.
"Greg also asked whether Leo would inherit the house if something happened to you."
Nora felt sick.
"The house?"
"You told me later you'd talked to him and it was a misunderstanding."
"I don't remember talking to you about it."
Melissa looked devastated.
"Then maybe I wasn't talking to you."
The possibility sat between them.
Greg had not needed advanced technology.
He knew Nora's passcode.
He often answered her phone.
He had access to her social media.
He simply inserted himself into communication until every relationship went through him.
Nora began remembering the past two years differently.
Melissa cancelling Thanksgiving.
Except Melissa claimed Nora had cancelled first.
Leo's teacher suddenly preferring to communicate through Greg.
Except maybe Greg had requested that.
Nora's neighbor June no longer asking Leo over to play with her grandson.
Except Greg said June had complained about Leo's behavior.
Every strained relationship contained Greg in the middle.
"What did you warn me about?" Nora whispered.
Melissa hesitated.
"He said something about Aaron."
Nora's eyes snapped up.
"What?"
"He was asking questions. About the accident. Whether there had been a lawsuit. Whether Aaron's employer paid anything."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Nora thought of Leo's words.
Greg said Dad left because of me.
A thought came so quickly she almost rejected it.
"Did Greg know Aaron?"
Melissa frowned.
"You told me they never met."
"That's what Greg said."
But the harbor community was not large.
Greg had worked construction along the waterfront.
Aaron had worked commercial boats out of the same docks.
It suddenly seemed strange that two men around the same age, both working around the harbor, had never crossed paths.
Nora opened an old photo album on her phone.
Images before Aaron's death.
Fishing festivals.
Company picnics.
Repair projects at the docks.
She scrolled.
Melissa leaned closer.
Then Nora stopped.
A photograph from five years earlier showed Aaron standing beside three crew members near a renovated storage building.
In the background, half turned away from the camera, stood a man in a plaid work jacket.
Greg.
Younger.
Bearded.
But unmistakable.
Nora zoomed in.
Melissa whispered, "He knew him."
Nora's heart began pounding.
Greg had told her they first met after Aaron's death.
That he knew Aaron only by reputation.
That he admired fishermen like him.
All lies.
Officer Ruiz returned an hour later.
Nora immediately showed her the photograph.
Ruiz studied it.
"It establishes they were in the same place. Not necessarily a relationship."
"I know."
Nora felt suddenly embarrassed.
She was beginning to see conspiracies everywhere.
Then Ruiz sat across from her.
"We found something else in the shed."
Nora's fingers tightened around her phone.
"What?"
"Not in the locked box. On a shelf."
Ruiz slid a printed photograph across the table.
It showed a yellow rain jacket.
Old.
Salt-stained.
Folded carefully inside a plastic storage bin.
Nora stopped breathing.
Aaron's jacket.
The one the Coast Guard had returned after his death.
The one Nora had believed was still packed in a sealed tote in her attic.
"I haven't seen this in years."
"Leo has."
Nora looked toward Room 4.
"What?"
Ruiz nodded.
"He told our child specialist Greg sometimes made him wear it when he was in the shed."
Nora covered her mouth.
"Why?"
"Leo says Greg would tell him to think about what happened to his father."
Melissa stood abruptly.
"What kind of sick—"
Ruiz raised her hand.
"We're still gathering facts."
Nora couldn't hear anything else.
She saw her five-year-old son at Aaron's funeral.
Leo gripping that yellow sleeve.
Refusing to let the funeral director take the jacket away.
She had eventually brought it home.
It had smelled faintly of salt and diesel.
Leo used to sleep holding it.
Then one day, years later, it disappeared.
Greg said Nora must have donated it during a closet cleanout.
You're always forgetting things.
Nora stared at the photo.
Greg had taken it.
Hidden it.
Used it.
Not to remember Aaron.
To punish Leo.
May you like
And for the first time Nora asked herself a question more frightening than what Greg had done after marrying her.
What had Greg wanted from their family before he ever introduced himself?
