Page 161 of Hades

Then I saw her.

The woman sitting in the folding chair at the back of the booth. My breath stopped. The world tilted sideways and I had to grip the handles of Apollo’s wheelchair to keep from staggering.

No.

No fucking way.

But it was her.

Older. Grayer. Heavier. But unmistakably her.

Claire.

My wife’s best friend. The woman who’d been at our house the day Colette disappeared. The woman who’d had access to everything, who’d known where Colette slept, known our routines, known exactly when we’d be vulnerable.

The infertile woman who’d cried on my wife’s shoulder about never being able to have children of her own.

The woman who’d disappeared two weeks after Colette vanished, with some bullshit excuse about not being able to handle our grief.

Claire fucking Morrison.

Sitting ten feet away from me. Raising my daughter as her own child.

The recognition knocked the air from my lungs. As if someone had reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until it stopped beating.

Twenty-three years.

Twenty-three years of searching. Of following leads that went nowhere. Of watching Apollo destroy himself with guilt and obsession. Of wondering if Colette was dead or alive or suffering somewhere we couldn’t reach her.

And she’d been with her the whole time.

My breath stopped. The world tilted sideways.

She’d been here.

Two miles from the clubhouse.

Hidden in plain sight by a woman I’d trusted. A woman my wife had loved like a sister.

“Claire.”

The name came out of my mouth before I could stop it. Loud enough to cut through the festival noise. Loud enough to make Lettie’s hands still on the jar she was holding.

The woman in the chair froze.

Her eyes found mine across the distance.

And I saw it.

Recognition. Fear. Calculation.

She knew I’d found her.

“Dad?” Apollo’s voice was confused and urgent. “What⁠—”

“That’s Claire Morrison,” I said. My voice was flat. Dead. The kind of calm that came before violence. “Your mother’s best friend. The woman who was there when everything happened.”

Silence crashed down around us.