The Letter

The envelope arrived eleven days after the permanent order.

No return address. Hand-delivered — she could tell by the postmark, or rather by the absence of one. Someone had put it in her mailbox, which meant someone had been to her building, which meant the order was already being tested.

She didn't open it immediately. She called Aaron, who told her not to open it until he could advise. She put it on the kitchen table next to her evidence log and sat across from it and felt the particular dread of the thing she knew was coming and couldn't prevent.

He would have written it himself. That was his way — to make the approach seem personal, like something between the two of them rather than something a man was doing to a woman who had left him. She'd received letters before. She'd received them after she'd filed the first order and after she'd withdrawn it and after she'd come back the time she came back. The letters were always the same: I understand you're upset, I want to talk, I miss you, you're making a mistake.

This one was different.

Aaron opened it in his office, with her there. He was careful about it — wore gloves, handled it by the edges, photographed it before he read it.

It was one page. Handwritten, in Drake's precise print.

I know about Aaron.

She read it three times before she understood what it meant.

Not I know about the attorney. Not I know about the case. Just: I know about Aaron.

Aaron looked at her. His expression had changed.

"Liza," he said. "Who is Aaron?"

She sat very still.

The question meant he hadn't known. The question meant something had happened that had introduced a person named Aaron into Drake's knowledge, and that person was not her attorney, and she had just told this man in this room that she had no contact with anyone named Aaron.

"Aaron is my attorney," she said. Her voice was very calm. "That's the only Aaron."

Aaron looked at the letter again. He put it down.

"I don't think it is," he said.

The room was very quiet. She thought about the PI's report — the Route 9 address, eight miles from her apartment, the one Drake had been going to. She thought about what he might have found there, or who might have found him.

"Liza," Aaron said again. "Who else is named Aaron?"