Chapter 2 - The Digital Footprint
The hospital room had grown so quiet that the hum of the IV pump sounded like a distant engine. Roland didn't move. His hand remained hooked over the top of a plastic chair, his knuckles mottled with age spots and pale from pressure.
"The Wi-Fi drops out during high winds," Roland said, his voice dropping into that raspy, reasonable register he used when he was explaining why a fence needed to be moved or why a loan shouldn't be called in. "You know how these older routers are, Clara. The signal bounces off the metal siding of the garage."
I didn't look up from the screen. Below the 7:16 timestamp, another line item showed a second device had accessed the admin portal at 8:42 p.m.—long after the storm had peaked and the wind had dropped to a steady, freezing whistle.
"This isn't a drop, Roland," I said. My voice didn't shake, which surprised me. It felt flat, like cold iron. "The log says Manual Override - Admin Device. Your phone is the only admin device on this network."
Caleb shifted under the warming blanket, his uninjured hand twitching toward my sleeve. I reached out and let him curl his fingers around my thumb, careful not to brush the thick gauze on his right hand.
Roland exhaled through his nose, a short, dismissive puff of air. "You're looking at it wrong. You never understood how those apps sync. They cache files locally and then upload them whenever they feel like it. Aaron could tell you. He's the one who set up the network in the first place."
"Aaron is on a freight train between here and Altoona," I said. "And Aaron didn't turn this off while his son was standing in eighteen-degree weather without a jacket."
Roland stepped closer, his boots squeaking against the linoleum. "Clara. Let's not get dramatic in a hospital. The boy took twenty dollars from my desk drawer. It was right there under the brass paperweight. When I confronted him, he lied straight to my face. A thief and a liar. If I coddle him now, what kind of man do you think he'll be at twenty? At thirty?"
"He's nine, Roland," I said. I finally raised my eyes from the phone. The screen cast a blue glow across the bridge of my nose. "And he didn't take your twenty dollars."
"I saw him standing by the desk!" Roland's voice rose, sharp enough to make the nurse outside the door pause her trolley. "My glasses were right there. I saw the blue of his hoodie sleeve."
"Caleb wears a red hoodie on Tuesdays," I said softly. "The blue one is in the bottom of his laundry hamper at home because he spilled grape juice on it last Friday. You didn't see a blue sleeve, Roland. You saw what you wanted to see because you were looking for an excuse to clear out the spare room for your bridge club's visiting regional coordinator."
Roland’s jaw tightened. The skin around his mouth went white. "That is an absurd accusation."
"Is it?" I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the brass key, laying it on the metal bedside table with a dull clink. "You told Aaron you were looking all over town for him. You told the police—when they called you back after the ambulance report—that you had been driving up and down Maple Street. But the garage door sensor log shows your Buick didn't leave the driveway until 9:15 p.m. Exactly four minutes after the hospital called your landline."
Roland stared at the brass key as if it were a venomous insect.
"Clara," he began, lowering his voice into a gravelly whisper. "Think about your marriage. Think about Aaron. If you start throwing around words like negligence—if you make this into a police matter—do you think Aaron is going to stand by you? Or is he going to remember that his father built this family's construction business from the dirt up, and that every roof over your head came from my pocket?"
Before I could answer, the door swung open. Nurse Tessa walked in with a fresh saline bag and a clipboard, her eyes darting between Roland’s rigid posture and my hand resting over Caleb’s.
"Visiting hours for secondary family members ended ten minutes ago," Tessa said, her tone professional and entirely devoid of warmth as she looked at Roland. "And the doctor wants the patient to rest without stimulation."
Roland looked at Tessa, then back at me. He picked up his wool cap from the foot of the bed, turning it over twice in his broad, scarred hands.
May you like
"I'll be in the waiting room," Roland said to the wall above my head. "When you're done playing detective, Clara, we'll talk about how we're going to handle your husband when he gets off his shift."
He walked out, the door swinging shut behind him with a soft, pneumatic hiss.
