“What if I miss him?”
“Then we talk about what you miss.”
So they did.
The beginning.
The attention.
The man who once brought her food after a long shift and remembered she hated mushrooms.
Then they talked about the price that attention had acquired.
Her friends.
Her work.
The way she stopped choosing clothes before asking what he preferred.
She cried afterward.
Not only for what he had done.
For the time she had spent trying to earn back a man who appeared only when it suited him.
The investigation into Aaron and Gabriel widened.
The recording was examined.
Appointments and communications supported parts of what was discussed.
Financial records raised further questions.
Other people gave statements.
Dana Park described what she witnessed outside the lounge and at the hospital.
The paramedics documented Chloe’s refusal to have Aaron accompany her.
The medical records stood beside her account.
No single person had to carry the whole case.
Aaron’s attorney challenged her credibility.
Gabriel denied that the recording meant what investigators said it meant.
Lorenzo was questioned too.
He discovered that being the intended victim of one crime did not free him from answering for other conduct.
He did not enjoy the lesson.
He kept attending the meetings.
Chloe heard about these things through her own attorney.
Not through whispered reports from Matteo.
Not through Lorenzo calling to say he had handled it.
She liked that.
Her life had contained enough things done in her name without her understanding them.
One afternoon, Sarah brought a box from the apartment.
The belongings had been collected with arrangements made through the people supporting Chloe.
There were books.
A chipped yellow mug.
Her sewing shears.
A tin of buttons.
Chloe touched the shears.
Before Aaron, she had worked at an alterations shop.
She had been good at it.
Not famous.
Not secretly gifted beyond belief.
Good.
Careful with fabric.
Patient with people who wanted clothes to fit bodies they apologized for having.
Aaron had disliked the late fittings.
The male customers.
The owner who asked why he waited outside so often.
