Chapter 2 - The School Pickup
The first rule Detective Hannah Brooks gave me was simple.
“Don't trust any explanation until we can verify it.”
I looked at her across the police station interview table.
“Does that include yours?”
She almost smiled.
“Especially mine.”
I liked her a little for that.
Brooks was forty-three, with tired brown eyes and a permanent crease between her eyebrows.
She'd spent sixteen years investigating violent crimes.
She didn't seem impressed by the Whitmore name.
That made her the first person I'd met all day who didn't act like Nathan owned the county.
I placed the school photograph in front of her.
“That's my mother.”
Brooks examined it.
“The woman you were told died in 2003?”
“Yes.”
“And the man?”
“Samuel Miller. My father's identical twin.”
“You knew about him before today?”
“No.”
She wrote something down.
“Did your father ever mention a brother?”
“Never.”
“Why would he hide that?”
I laughed bitterly.
“Detective, I'm starting to think lying was our family business.”
She studied the photograph again.
“Samuel appears to have accompanied Rebecca. That's not the same as proving they worked together voluntarily.”
I stared at her.
“He's touching my daughter.”
“I see that.”
“Then find him.”
“We're working on it.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I dug my fingernails into my palms.
Brooks took out another photograph.
“This was taken at the school entrance eleven minutes later.”
A black SUV.
Two men stepping out.
One was Collins, the security man who'd followed Nathan into the restaurant.
I recognized his scar.
“Those are Nathan's men.”
“Can you establish how you know them?”
“They came into the restaurant with him.”
Brooks nodded.
“The SUV entered the parking lot after Lily was signed out. That fits Rebecca's claim that she reached Lily first.”
I leaned closer.
“What did they do?”
“They asked the secretary whether your daughter had already left.”
My stomach twisted.
“Why?”
“They claimed to be from a private family transport service.”
I stared at her.
“Transporting my daughter where?”
“We don't know.”
“Who authorized it?”
“The school says it received a guardianship authorization through an online document portal this morning.”
I went cold.
“I never signed anything.”
“I believe you.”
“Then who did?”
Brooks opened a folder.
“That's what concerns me.”
She slid a document toward me.
It was a temporary guardianship consent.
My name was printed at the bottom.
My signature appeared beneath it.
I stared.
It looked exactly like mine.
The slanted G.
The little loop in the M.
The way I never fully closed the final r.
But I hadn't signed it.
“That's forged.”
Brooks nodded.
“We're having it examined.”
“Who submitted it?”
“A law firm called Whitmore Legal Services.”
I closed my eyes.
Nathan.
Of course.
Then I noticed the date.
The document had been prepared six months earlier.
Six months.
They hadn't decided to take Lily that morning.
They'd been planning it for half a year.
I looked up.
“Detective, why would somebody prepare a guardianship form six months before kidnapping a child?”
Brooks didn't answer.
She didn't have to.
Sarah arrived at the station with a bruise on her arm and a paper cup of terrible coffee.
The moment she saw me, she pulled me into a hug.
“Oh, honey.”
I held her tightly.
“Are you okay?”
“I'm fine.”
“Your phone went dead.”
“Samuel knocked it out of my hand.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“Not exactly.”
She rubbed her arm.
“He grabbed me when I tried to take another picture.”
I stepped back.
“What did he say?”
Sarah glanced at Brooks.
“He said to tell Grace that Thomas was sorry.”
My throat closed.
Thomas.
My father.
The man who'd packed my lunches, taught me to drive, and cried at my wedding.
The man Rebecca accused of selling us out.
“What else?” I asked.
Sarah swallowed.
“He said the watch wasn't supposed to leave the coffin.”
I stared at her.
Brooks looked up sharply.
“Which watch?”
“The one in the photograph.”
Sarah reached into her purse.
She handed me a folded piece of paper.
“He put this under my windshield wiper before he left.”
I opened it.
Three lines.
The watch was taken eleven years ago.
Ask who ordered the coffin reopened.
Do not let Eleanor touch the recording.
I read the note twice.
Then I handed it to Brooks.
She examined it.
“Did you see him write this?”
“No,” Sarah said.
“Did he leave it himself?”
“I saw him walk toward my car, but I was calling the police.”
Brooks placed it in an evidence sleeve.
I looked at the photograph.
“Why would Samuel warn me about Eleanor?”
Brooks folded her arms.
“Maybe he's telling the truth.”
“Or?”
“Maybe he wants you to stop trusting the person who gave you the key.”
That was the problem.
Every person in my life seemed to be offering half an answer and demanding complete trust in return.
At 4:15 p.m., Rebecca called.
Brooks connected the phone to a recording system after obtaining my consent.
I answered.
“Where's Lily?”
“She's safe.”
“Don't say that again unless you're bringing her to me.”
Rebecca went quiet.
Then she whispered, “I'm sorry.”
“Put her on.”
A moment later, Lily's voice filled the room.
“Mommy?”
I pressed my palm against my mouth.
“Hi, baby.”
“Are you mad?”
“Not at you.”
“Grandma says we're going somewhere special.”
My heart began racing.
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“Is the man with the watch still there?”
A silence.
Then Lily said, “No. Grandma told him to go away.”
I looked at Brooks.
She wrote something down.
“Did he scare you?”
Lily hesitated.
“A little.”
“Why?”
“He said Daddy wasn't supposed to die.”
The words struck me so hard I couldn't speak.
Lily's father, Daniel, had died two years earlier in a collision on a rainy highway.
A truck crossed the center line.
The driver was never identified.
For two years I'd tried not to imagine his final seconds.
Now a stranger wearing my dead father's watch had mentioned Daniel's death to my daughter.
“Sweetheart,” I said carefully, “what exactly did he tell you?”
“Grandma got mad and said not to talk about Daddy.”
Rebecca took the phone.
“Grace, I need you to listen.”
“Did Samuel know Daniel?”
She went silent.
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“How?”
“Daniel came looking for me.”
I couldn't move.
“What?”
“About three months before he died.”
I gripped the table.
“My husband knew you were alive?”
“He suspected.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“And he never told me?”
“He wanted proof.”
Rebecca's voice cracked.
“He said he'd found something that could expose the Whitmores.”
“Then why didn't he come home and tell me?”
“He was afraid you'd be watched.”
I looked at Brooks.
Her expression had changed.
“Did Nathan have him killed?” I whispered.
Rebecca began crying.
“I don't know.”
I closed my eyes.
Not again.
Another death.
Another secret.
Another person who'd loved me and decided I couldn't handle the truth.
“Where are you?” I asked.
Rebecca hesitated.
Then said, “There's a farmhouse outside Briar Creek.”
I remembered the photograph Eleanor had given me.
The white house.
The porch.
The place where my mother had stood holding me when I was little.
“Bring Lily there.”
“We're already here.”
My heart jumped.
“Stay there. I'm coming.”
“Grace—”
“No more games, Mom. I am coming to get my daughter.”
She exhaled.
“All right.”
Then she whispered, “But don't bring Eleanor.”
The call ended.
Brooks was already standing.
“I know the area.”
I grabbed my coat.
She blocked the door.
“Grace, I need you to understand something.”
“What?”
“We can bring Lily home. But you need to be prepared for the possibility that Rebecca knows more about Daniel's death than she's telling you.”
I swallowed.
“I know.”
Brooks held my gaze.
“And if she helped somebody commit a crime, being your mother won't protect her from the investigation.”
For the first time all day, I felt something other than panic.
Anger.
Not at Brooks.
At the people who'd kept deciding what I deserved to know.
“Good,” I said.
She looked surprised.
I picked up my bag.
“Because I'm done protecting people just because I love them.”
The farmhouse was empty when we arrived.
The front door stood open.
A cup of strawberry milk sat on the kitchen table.
Beside it was Lily's pink hair ribbon.
I picked it up.
Still warm from the sunlight.
On the refrigerator, a child's drawing had been held in place with a magnet.
Three people stood beside a yellow house.
One was a little girl.
One was an older woman.
The third was a man.
Underneath, Lily had written:
GRANDMA, ME, AND THE NICE MAN.
Brooks examined the back door.
“No sign of forced entry.”
I turned.
“Then where are they?”
A phone rang from somewhere inside the house.
Not mine.
Not Brooks's.
We followed the sound upstairs.
It came from a bedroom closet.
Inside, sitting on the floor, was an old cellphone.
The screen showed an incoming call.
THOMAS.
I stared at it.
My dead father's name.
Brooks answered on speaker.
“Hello?”
A man spoke.
His voice was rough.
Older.
And horribly familiar.
“Grace?”
My knees almost gave way.
I knew that voice.
I'd heard it every day for nineteen years.
“Dad?”
A long silence.
Then the man said:
“Don't call me that.”
I gripped the doorframe.
“Samuel?”
“Yes.”
“Where's my daughter?”
“Rebecca has her.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“Because I know why Daniel died.”
My throat closed.
Brooks motioned for me to keep talking.
“What happened to my husband?”
Samuel exhaled.
“Daniel found your father's recording.”
I stared at the phone.
“And?”
“He copied part of it.”
“Where is the copy?”
“That's what Nathan wants.”
I could barely breathe.
“Did Nathan kill him?”
A long silence.
Then Samuel answered.
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
“Then who did?”
Samuel's voice became almost inaudible.
“The person Daniel trusted enough to tell where he was driving that night.”
I stared at the empty closet.
“Who?”
He swallowed.
May you like
“Your mother.”
The call ended.
