Chapter 38
I followed the ambulance to St. Vincent's because I didn't know what else to do, and Daniel followed me because apparently neither of us had learned how to walk away from disasters yet.
The emergency room smelled like antiseptic and burnt coffee. I sat in one of those plastic chairs that seemed designed to make you as uncomfortable as possible, my grandmother's jade bracelet clicking against the armrest every time I moved. Daniel stood by the window, hands in his pockets, looking at nothing.
"Okay so," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I expected. "You're going to explain."
He didn't turn around. "Richard will be fine. The bullet went through his shoulder, missed the bone."
"I don't care about Richard."
"You should. He's going to press charges against Morrison. Against the FBI. He'll make this as messy as possible."
My nails dug into my palms. "Daniel."
"I can handle it."
"Stop." The word came out sharp enough that an elderly woman two chairs over looked up from her magazine. I lowered my voice. "Stop doing that thing where you deflect and manage and handle everything except the actual question I'm asking."
He turned then, and the fluorescent lights made the shadows under his eyes look like bruises. "What do you want me to say?"
"The truth. What accident? Who disappeared?"
A nurse walked past pushing a cart that squeaked with every rotation of the wheels. Daniel watched her go, watched the cart turn the corner, watched the hallway become empty again.
"Six years ago," he said finally, "I was driving home from a business dinner. It was late. Raining. I ran a red light."
The words hung there, flat and terrible.
"There was another car," he continued. "I hit it. The driver—" He stopped. Started again. "She was hurt. Badly. And I panicked."
My stomach dropped. "You left?"
"No. I called 911. Stayed until the ambulance came. But Richard—" His mouth went flat. "Richard showed up before the police did. He had connections. He made it go away."
"Made what go away?"
"The accident report. The charges. Everything. He paid the woman's medical bills, set her up with enough money that she'd never have to work again. But she had to sign an NDA. Had to agree to relocate. Had to disappear."
I stood up. Sat back down. My legs weren't working right. "You let him do that."
"I was twenty-four. Terrified. He said if I didn't let him fix it, I'd lose everything. The company. My future. He said—" Daniel's voice cracked, just slightly. "He said my mother would be ashamed."
"Don't." I couldn't hear about his mother right now, couldn't let that soften what I was learning. "You've been lying to me this entire time."
"I never lied."
"You just didn't tell me you destroyed someone's life and paid them to disappear?" My voice was rising again. I didn't care. "That's not lying?"
"I didn't destroy her life. She's fine. She's—"
"You don't know that. You can't know that because she had to disappear." I was on my feet now, pacing in the small space between chairs. "And Richard's been holding this over you ever since, right? That's why you couldn't just walk away from him. That's why you've been playing his games."
Daniel's silence was answer enough.
A doctor emerged from the double doors, looking tired. "Family of Richard Park?"
Daniel moved toward him. I grabbed his arm, felt the tension in his muscles. "We're not done."
"I know."
Richard was sitting up in bed when we entered, his shoulder bandaged, an IV in his arm. He looked pale but alert, and when he saw us, he smiled.
"There they are," he said. "My favorite couple."
"Don't," Daniel said.
"Don't what? Don't tell the truth? Bit late for that, wouldn't you agree?" Richard shifted, winced. "Though I suppose you've already done the heavy lifting. Told her about the accident. About poor Sarah Chen."
My heart stopped. "What did you say?"
"Sarah Chen. That was her name. The woman Daniel hit. Funny coincidence, right? Same last name as you."
"That's not—" I looked at Daniel. "That's not possible."
But Daniel's face had gone completely white.
"Oh, you didn't know?" Richard's smile widened. "I thought surely you'd figured it out by now. Sarah Chen, age forty-seven at the time of the accident. Originally from San Francisco. Moved to New York after her husband's business went bankrupt. She was working as a bookkeeper for a small accounting firm when Daniel ran that red light."
The room tilted. I reached for the wall, found the bed rail instead. "My mother."
"Your mother," Richard confirmed. "Who took Richard Park's money and relocated to Portland. Who signed an NDA promising never to contact her daughter again. Who disappeared."
"You're lying." But even as I said it, I knew he wasn't. The timeline matched. The bankruptcy. The way my mother had just vanished one day, leaving only a note saying she needed space, needed time, needed to figure things out. The way my father had refused to talk about it, had thrown himself into drinking instead of explaining.
"Daniel," I said. "Tell me he's lying."
Daniel was staring at Richard with an expression I'd never seen before. "You knew. This whole time, you knew who she was."
"Of course I knew. I know everything, kiddo. That's how I stay ahead." Richard adjusted his IV line. "I knew the moment you brought her to that first dinner. Knew when you started your little lunch box arrangement. Knew when you fell in love with her."
"Then why—" Daniel's hands were shaking. "Why did you let it happen?"
"Because I wanted to see what you'd do. Would you tell her? Would you walk away? Would you finally grow a spine and stand up to me?" Richard laughed, then coughed, pressed his hand to his bandaged shoulder. "Turns out you'd do none of those things. You'd just keep lying by omission, keep pretending you could have something real while building it on a foundation of secrets."
I couldn't breathe. The fluorescent lights were too bright, the antiseptic smell too strong. "You knew. Both of you knew."
"I didn't know she was your mother," Daniel said quickly. "Not until—"
"Until when?"
He closed his eyes. "Until three weeks ago. I was going through old files, trying to find something to use against Richard. I found the accident report. Saw her name. Saw the address in San Francisco."
Three weeks. He'd known for three weeks and said nothing. Had kissed me, held me, made love to me, all while knowing he was the reason my mother had disappeared.
"Let's just—" I started, then stopped because there was nowhere to pivot, nothing practical to grab onto. "I need to leave."
"Nora, wait—"
"Don't touch me." I backed toward the door. "Don't follow me. Don't—" My voice broke. "Just don't."
"This is beautiful," Richard said from the bed. "Really, truly beautiful. Better than I could have scripted."
Daniel turned on him then, and something in his expression made Richard's smile falter. "You're done," Daniel said quietly. "Whatever you think you've won here, you're done."
"Am I? Because from where I'm sitting, I've got an FBI agent who shot an unarmed man, a niece-in-law who deleted evidence, and a nephew who's about to lose the only good thing that ever happened to him." Richard's eyes glittered. "I'd say I'm just getting started."
I made it to the parking garage before the shaking started. Leaned against a concrete pillar, slid down until I was sitting on the oil-stained ground, and tried to remember how to breathe.
My mother. Daniel had hit my mother. Had sent her away. Had taken her from me.
And I'd fallen in love with him.
The thought made me laugh, a sharp, broken sound that echoed off the low ceiling. Of course I had. Of course I'd found the one person in New York City whose secrets could destroy me and decided he was worth the risk.
Footsteps approached. I didn't look up.
"I told you not to follow me."
"I know." Daniel's voice came from somewhere above me. "But I'm not good at doing what I'm told."
"Apparently you're great at it. Richard tells you to cover up an accident, you do it. He tells you to keep secrets, you do it. He tells you to—"
"He didn't tell me to fall in love with you." Daniel crouched down, still keeping his distance. "That was all me. That was the one thing I did that he didn't plan for."
"Don't." I finally looked at him. "Don't make this about love. You don't get to use that word right now."
"What word should I use?"
"How about 'sorry'? How about 'I destroyed your family'? How about—" My throat closed up. I pressed my palms against my eyes, felt the jade bracelet cool against my forehead. "She was supposed to come back. My dad kept saying she just needed time, that she'd come back when she was ready. But she never did. And I thought—" I dropped my hands. "I thought it was my fault. That I'd done something wrong. That I wasn't enough to make her stay."
"Nora—"
"She took your uncle's money and left me. Signed away her right to contact me. And you knew. You knew and you still—" I couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't articulate the betrayal of it, the way he'd touched me knowing what he'd taken.
Daniel sat down properly, his back against the opposite pillar. The distance between us felt like miles. "I should have told you. The moment I figured it out, I should have told you."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because I'm a coward." He said it simply, like he was stating a fact. "Because I knew if I told you, you'd leave. And I wasn't ready to lose you."
"So you just decided to keep lying?"
"I decided to be selfish. To take what I could get for as long as I could get it." He looked at me then, really looked at me. "I decided that having you was worth any price I'd have to pay later."
"Even if the price was me hating you?"
"Even then."
A car alarm went off somewhere in the garage, shrill and insistent. Neither of us moved.
"I don't know how to forgive this," I said finally. "I don't know if I can."
"I know."
"And I don't know if I want to. If I should." I pulled my knees up, wrapped my arms around them. "You're the reason she left. You're the reason I spent six years wondering what I did wrong."
"I know."
"Stop saying that." My voice cracked. "Stop being so calm and reasonable and—" I threw my hands up. "Fight back. Defend yourself. Give me something to push against."
"What would that change?"
"I don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything." I stood up, my legs unsteady. "I need to go home. I need to think."
Daniel stood too. "Can I—"
"No." I cut him off before he could finish. "Whatever you're about to ask, the answer is no."
He nodded slowly. Reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone. "The FBI is going to want to talk to you. About the wire. About what happened."
"I know."
"Richard's going to try to use this. The accident. Your mother. He'll twist it into something he can leverage."
"I know."
"And I—" He stopped. Started again. "I'm going to fix this. I'm going to find your mother. I'm going to make this right."
"You can't make this right." I was already walking toward my car. "Some things can't be fixed, Daniel. Some things are just broken."
Agent Morrison was waiting outside my apartment building, leaning against an unmarked sedan with her arm in a sling.
"You look terrible," she said when I approached.
"You got shot."
"Flesh wound. I've had worse." She pushed off the car. "We need to talk."
"I'm tired."
"I know. But Richard Park is already making calls. His lawyers are filing complaints. We need to get ahead of this."
I stopped at the building entrance, my keys in my hand. "Did you know? About the accident? About my mother?"
Morrison's expression didn't change. "We knew Richard had leverage over Daniel. We didn't know the specifics until tonight."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I can give you." She shifted her weight, winced slightly. "Look, I know you're angry. You have every right to be. But right now, we need to focus on—"
"On what? On taking down Richard? On making sure your case doesn't fall apart?" I laughed, and it sounded bitter even to my own ears. "I don't care about your case anymore. I don't care about any of this."
"Your mother cared." Morrison said it quietly, but the words hit like a slap. "She cared enough to take Richard's money and disappear so you wouldn't be dragged into the mess. So you could have a clean start."
"How do you know that?"
"Because we found her. Three days ago. She's in Portland, working at a bakery under a different name. She's been following your career. She has newspaper clippings about your restaurant, photos from your social media. She never stopped caring, Nora. She just couldn't come back."
The keys slipped from my hand, clattered on the concrete. "You found her."
"We found her. And if you want, we can arrange a meeting. After this is over. After Richard is—"
"I want to see her now."
Morrison shook her head. "That's not possible. Not yet. Richard's lawyers are already trying to claim witness tampering. If you contact her before the trial—"
"I don't care about the trial." I bent down, picked up my keys. My hands were shaking again. "I don't care about Richard or Daniel or any of this. I just want my mother back."
"I know. But if you contact her now, Richard walks. His lawyers will claim we coerced her testimony, that the whole investigation is compromised. Everything we've built falls apart."
"How long?"
"Six months. Maybe less if we can get him to take a plea deal."
Six months. After six years of nothing, six more months felt impossible. "And if I refuse? If I just get on a plane to Portland right now?"
"Then Richard wins. He gets away with everything he's done. And your mother's NDA becomes worthless. He can sue her for breach of contract, take back everything he gave her." Morrison's voice softened. "I know it's not fair. But sometimes we have to play the long game."
I looked up at my building, at the dark windows of my apartment. Somewhere inside was the life I'd built, the restaurant I'd opened, the future I'd planned. And somewhere in Portland was my mother, working in a bakery, keeping newspaper clippings, waiting.
"Okay so," I said, and my voice sounded hollow. "What do you need from me?"
Daniel was sitting on my apartment steps when I came back down an hour later. He stood when he saw me, and I noticed he'd changed clothes, washed the blood off his hands.
"Morrison told me you were here," he said.
"She shouldn't have."
"Probably not." He stayed where he was, didn't try to approach. "She said they found your mother."
"They did."
"That's good. That's—" He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm glad."
"Are you?" I stopped a few feet away, close enough to see the exhaustion in his face. "Because she can't come back yet. Because of Richard. Because of the trial. Because of everything you and your uncle did."
"I know."
"Stop saying that." I was so tired of hearing those two words. "Stop acting like you understand when you can't possibly—"
"You're right." He cut me off, and there was something raw in his voice now. "I don't understand. I don't know what it's like to lose a parent and spend years wondering why. I don't know what it's like to find out the person you—" He stopped. "I don't understand. But I'm trying to."
"Trying isn't enough."
"I know." He said it again, and this time I didn't correct him. "But it's all I have right now."
A taxi drove past, its headlights sweeping across us. In the brief illumination, I saw the way Daniel was holding himself together, the careful control that was barely masking something desperate underneath.
"Morrison wants me to testify," I said. "Against Richard. She says with my testimony and the wire recordings, they can make the charges stick."
"Will you do it?"
"I don't know. Maybe. If it means my mother can come home sooner." I wrapped my arms around myself. The night air was cold, or maybe I was just finally feeling everything I'd been holding back. "She wants you to testify too. About the accident. About how Richard covered it up."
Daniel's expression didn't change, but things were different now his posture. "That would mean admitting to leaving the scene. To letting Richard obstruct justice."
"Yes."
"I could go to jail."
"Yes."
He nodded slowly, like he was working through a complex equation. "Okay."
"Okay?" I stared at him. "That's it? Just okay?"
"What else should I say?" He finally moved closer, stopped when he was just within arm's reach. "You want me to fight it? To find a way out? I'm done running, Nora. I'm done letting Richard control everything because I'm too afraid of the consequences."
"This isn't about being brave. This is about your entire life."
"My entire life has been built on a lie. On money and power and secrets." His voice dropped. "The only real thing I've ever had was you. And I destroyed that too."
"Daniel—"
"I'll testify. I'll tell them everything. And if that means I go to jail, then—" He shrugged, and the gesture was so unlike him that it hurt to watch. "Then maybe that's what I deserve."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him he was being dramatic, that there had to be another way. But the words wouldn't come because part of me agreed with him. Part of me wanted him to pay for what he'd done, wanted him to hurt the way I was hurting.
And part of me just wanted him to hold me while I fell apart.
"I should go," I said instead. "It's late."
"Nora." He said my name like a question, like a prayer. "Can I ask you something?"
"What?"
"If I do this—if I testify, if I help put Richard away, if I serve whatever time they give me—" He paused. "Would there be a chance? For us?"
The question hung between us, heavy and impossible. I thought about my mother in Portland, about six years of silence, about newspaper clippings and social media photos and love that couldn't find its way home. I thought about Daniel's hands on my skin, his voice in the dark, the way he'd asked if I'd eaten instead of how I was.
I thought about the lunch boxes, the careful meals, the way he'd learned to show love in the only language he knew.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "I don't know if I can forgive you. I don't know if I should. I don't know—"
My phone buzzed. I pulled it out, saw Morrison's name on the screen. Answered.
"Nora," Morrison said, and something in her voice made my stomach drop. "We have a problem. Richard made bail an hour ago. And he's—" She paused. "He's on his way to Portland. We think he's going after your mother."
The phone slipped from my hand, and Daniel caught it, caught me as my knees gave out, and I heard Morrison's voice tinny and distant saying something about protective custody and flight times and how they were trying to get there first, but Richard had a private plane and a head start and—
Daniel was already pulling out his own phone, already dialing, and I heard him say "Get the jet ready" in a voice that was pure command, pure Park family authority, and then he was looking at me with an expression that was part determination and part desperation and he said—