The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 204

The Archive Lives in Me

HANNAH’S POV:

“Where did you get this?” Elijah asked, his voice sharpening.

“CCTV from the camera above the pharmacy directly across from the building,” Lucas said. “I have a contact at the security management company that handles it. I asked him to pull the footage from the night of the fire and he sent me the sections that were relevant.”

“Lucas,” I said slowly.

“I know.” He took the phone back. “But that is not actually the most important part.” He swiped to the next image, which was the same scene but zoomed in with significant effort toward the rear of that parked car. The image was grainy and the digits were not all perfectly sharp but you could make out enough of a number plate to work with.

“We have the plate number?” Elijah said.

“We have most of it,” Lucas said. “My contact is working on cleaning up the image further. We should have the complete plate by tomorrow morning at the latest.”

The three of us sat with that information for a moment. The car was quiet except for the sound of the road moving beneath us. Outside the city carried on doing exactly what it always does, completely unaware of this small and very quiet moment happening inside a moving vehicle where three people had just realized they were one step closer to knowing who had tried to burn everything down.

“Good,” I said, turning back to face the front.

I laced my fingers through Elijah’s on the gear stick and he squeezed once.

I looked out at the road ahead and thought about the archive room and my mother’s photographs and the person sitting in that car across the street watching the fire they had started burning quietly in the dark of the night. I thought about what kind of person does that and then simply sits and watches. What is happening inside them at that moment. Are they satisfied? Relieved? Enjoying it? Are they feeling anything at all?

Whoever you are, I thought, in the quiet back corner of my mind where the real thoughts live, you made one very big mistake.

I drew until my hand ached.

I drew the gown I had seen in my mind since the first time Aunt Adele showed me the photographs of my mother. The one with the draped back and the structured bodice and the kind of skirt that moves when you walk like it has its own quiet intention. I drew the suit I had always imagined my mother wearing if she had been given the life she deserved, clean strong lines, the type of thing that simply says I am here and I am not going anywhere withou needing to say a single word. I drew the everyday pieces too, because Mirada was never only about extraordinary moments. It was about the dignity of ordinary days. The quiet beauty of a woman simply existing in a world that keeps trying to make her smaller.

I drew until the wall was covered and the night had gone deep and my phone lit up on the table beside me with a message from Elijah.

It said simply: Hannah.

Which was his way of saying, it has been considerably more than an hour, my love, and I am waiting.

I smiled at the screen and typed back: Five more minutes.