Chapter 12 - THE NIGHT MARCUS CAME FOR MY DAUGHTER

I don’t remember getting into the car.

I remember Daniel yelling.

Police lights.

Wet roads.

My hands shaking so badly I couldn’t fasten my seat belt.

“Sophie is protected,” Samantha kept saying.

But no parent hears that sentence.

We hear only the possibility hiding behind it.

When we reached my sister’s neighborhood, police cars were everywhere.

I jumped out.

An officer caught me.

“Ma’am, stay back.”

“My daughter is inside!”

“She’s safe.”

“Where?”

“Inside.”

Then we heard it.

A crash from behind the house.

Officers ran.

Daniel tried to follow.

They stopped him.

Thirty seconds later, shouting erupted.

“Hands!”

“Get down!”

“Show me your hands!”

My knees nearly gave out.

Then a man appeared between two officers.

Marcus Lane.

I had seen him hundreds of times at Whitmore headquarters.

Gray suits.

Polite smile.

Always remembered people’s birthdays.

He didn’t look like a criminal mastermind.

That was probably why he had survived so long.

His coat was muddy.

Blood ran from his forehead.

His hands were cuffed behind him.

He looked at me and smiled.

“Claire.”

Daniel lunged.

Four people stopped him.

Marcus laughed.

“There he is.”

“You threatened my daughter!”

“No.”

“You said—”

“I said curiosity was dangerous.”

“That was a threat.”

“A lawyer might disagree.”

An FBI agent approached him.

“Keep talking. Please.”

Marcus’s smile faded.

They put him into a vehicle.

I ran inside.

Sophie was crying in my sister’s arms.

“Mommy!”

I dropped to my knees and held her so tightly she complained.

I didn’t care.

“I’m okay,” she whispered.

I kissed her hair.

“I know.”

She pulled back.

“A man knocked on the window.”

My blood ran cold.

“What?”

“A man outside.”

“Marcus?”

“I don’t know.”

Police had caught Marcus near the backyard fence.

But Sophie pointed toward the front.

“He wore a hat.”

Daniel looked at me.

“Another man?”

Detectives searched the property.

No second person was found.

Then Sophie said:

“He left this.”

She handed me a folded piece of paper.

An officer immediately took it.

One sentence was printed inside.

MARCUS IS NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO STOLE FROM WHITMORE.

There was a number beneath it.

An account number.

Nathan checked it the next morning.

The account belonged to a senior Whitmore executive.

Someone who had worked beside Richard for twenty-seven years.

Someone who had spent Thanksgiving at our table.

Nathan stared at the result.

“You’re not going to believe this.”

Richard looked over his shoulder.

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