That made me even more certain she had hidden money somewhere.
She took an old car.
Some clothes.
Personal books.
That was all.
I kept the house.
The company.
The story.
Then Hannah disappeared from my life.
Or so I thought.
Now I was following her through a neighborhood near the canal.
I kept my SUV far behind.
She walked slowly.
Her limp was worse than I first noticed.
She turned down an unpaved path.
The houses became smaller.
Then not houses at all.
Rooms.
Converted sheds.
Metal walls.
Plywood roofs.
Plastic stretched over broken windows.
My stomach tightened.
Hannah stopped at a tiny structure near the end.
She knocked twice.
Then entered.
I parked fifty yards away.
For a moment, I sat there.
I should have left.
There was no reason to follow.
Then I noticed something through the open doorway.
A hospital bed.
No.
Not a hospital bed.
A makeshift bed.
Wooden frame.
Concrete blocks.
Thin mattress.
Hannah stepped inside.
I got out.
Rain soaked my jacket immediately.
I walked closer.
Then heard her voice.
“I’m back, Dad.”
“I brought you some nice hot soup.”
I froze.
Dad?
Hannah’s father had been dead for years.
I moved toward the doorway.
Then saw him.
My father.
Walter Carter.
Lying on the bed.
One side of his body barely moved.
His face drooped.
His hair was almost completely white.
A blanket covered his legs.
I stopped breathing.
For six months, I had been sending Melissa thirty-five hundred dollars every month.
She told me Dad lived at Silver Pines Rehabilitation Center.
Private care.
Physical therapy.
Gardens.
Meals.
A nurse around the clock.
Every week, she sent photographs.
Dad in a wheelchair near flowers.
Dad beside a therapy machine.
