Chapter 8 - Seven Minutes beside the Road
The collision had happened at 9:17 p.m. on a wet Thursday. Nora had memorized the hour from the police report because she'd spent weeks imagining how the last minutes of Aaron's life might have felt. She hadn't known that, for part of that time, her father and Wren had been close enough to touch his truck.
Detective Morris met with Nora, Denise, and a victim-support specialist. She explained what the investigators had established and what remained uncertain. Wren had supplied her original phone. The recovered video showed the scene after the collision, Victor at the driver's side of Aaron's vehicle, and Wren holding a flashlight with one hand while filming with the other. The footage showed Victor insisting they retrieve a blue bag and Wren removing it. The watch was visible on Aaron's wrist in one frame; it was no longer there when the camera swung back. Wren had told investigators she removed it herself.
Nora kept her hands clasped in her lap. “Why?”
“Wren says Victor told her they needed to keep Aaron's things out of the wrong hands. She says she also thought the watch was valuable. We are checking both claims.”
“She wore it to my house.”
“We have that detail in your statement,” Morris said.
Morris turned another page. The timing in the video and the call records suggested a gap of approximately seven minutes between Wren's arrival and her emergency call. Investigators were examining what happened during that interval and whether the delay affected the response. Morris did not speculate about Aaron's chances of survival or give Nora a conclusion the medical evidence couldn't support.
“He was alive?” Nora asked again.
“His voice has been identified on the recording.”
The room fell away. Nora remembered Aaron leaning over her shoulder while she soldered glass, asking how a person knew when a seam was strong enough. She'd told him the answer was to stop pulling at it. He had kissed the side of her head and said he'd probably never learn that lesson.
“What did he say?”
Morris played a short, authenticated section after warning Nora what she would hear. Road noise crackled. Wren said, “Victor, we have to call somebody.” Victor answered, “Get the bag.” Then Aaron's voice, low and breathless, came from the truck.
“Tell Nora I said no.”
Nora had thought there would be a final speech, a secret blessing, perhaps her own name spoken like a miracle. Instead he had refused something. He had spent his last audible breath protecting a boundary she'd drawn.
She asked Morris to stop the recording. The detective did.
The investigator also described roadside footage that placed a truck matching Victor's near the collision shortly before it occurred. Analysts were examining its movements, and Morris would not characterize the cause of the crash before that work was complete. Nora could already see the story people would tell online: an evil father, a dramatic chase, a neat confession. Real answers were taking interviews, records, and more time than grief could bear.
“What was in the bag?” Nora asked.
“It hasn't been recovered.”
“Victor knows.”
“We intend to ask him.”
When she returned home, Nora walked straight into the nursery. She stood beneath the painted comet, holding the tube of Aaron's drawing, and spoke to the empty room.
“You should've told me about the inspection. We could've handled it together.”
The words felt disloyal until she realized she was allowed to love Aaron and still be angry with him. She didn't have to turn their marriage into a monument no one could question. He had been funny, impatient, generous, secretive when afraid, and devoted to the child he would never hold. All of those things could be true.
Cal found her there. “You heard the recording.”
“I heard him,” Nora said.
He sat on the floor, leaning his back against the wall. It took Nora a moment to lower herself onto the chair opposite him; childbirth had left her tender, and her knees were still bruised from the porch.
“Does it help?” he asked.
“No.” She thought a moment. “It tells me he wasn't saying yes. That's something.”
Cal rubbed the scar along his knuckle, an old mark from a firehouse door. “He called me that morning. Told me not to talk to Victor until he got it sorted. I listened. I thought I was respecting him.”
“You were his brother.”
“And I knew he had a habit of getting in over his head alone.”
“So did I.”
Cal looked up. “Did he make you feel loved?”
“Every day.”
“Then you get to miss him without turning this into a trial of every decision he made.”
Nora shook her head. “I get to have both. I get to miss him and wish he'd trusted me.”
Cal nodded. “That's fair.”
At dusk Wren sent a signed statement through her attorney acknowledging that she'd posted an edited portrayal of the porch assault, removed Aaron's watch at the collision scene, and helped Victor retrieve the bag before calling emergency services. She did not claim she had caused the collision. She did not ask Nora for forgiveness. Her attorney advised her to preserve all relevant material and cooperate with the ongoing inquiry.
Nora read the statement once and asked Denise to file it where it belonged. Wren's admissions mattered. They did not make her a friend.
The next morning, Nora received confirmation that her request for temporary protective restrictions had been granted pending further proceedings, with terms explained by counsel. The developer had formally ended its proposed transaction with Victor after reviewing the ownership dispute. Nora's home was no longer being advertised or surveyed for sale.
She told Cal while Elsie slept against her shoulder. “We can finish the stars.”
He looked up at the ceiling. “Aaron's drawing says there are eleven.”
“Then eleven.”
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But when Cal reached into his pocket for a pencil, his phone rang. It was Morris. The investigators had identified the license plate of Victor's truck near the crash. They were now looking for someone who had been riding in the back seat.
Wren had said the truck held only two people.
