Chương 6
He understood June’s comment.
“You gave them her email.”
“No.”
“Then how did they find her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Victoria.”
“I don’t know.”
He stepped closer.
She did not move.
“A detective called me. He said Claire had made contact through an attorney. He wouldn’t tell me where she was. He said she was an adult, she was safe, and she did not want her location disclosed.”
Adrian stared at her.
“No.”
“That happened.”
“No. Detective Myers told me there was no confirmed contact.”
“He told you there was no location he could provide.”
“No.”
“Adrian.”
“No.”
He pulled out his phone.
Victoria stepped forward.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Myers.”
“It’s two thirty in the morning.”
“I don’t care.”
“He retired.”
“I have his personal number.”
“Of course you do.”
The cruelty in her voice stopped him.
He lowered the phone.
Victoria sat again.
“You heard what you wanted to hear,” she said. “Or maybe he softened it because he knew how you were. I don’t know. But Claire was alive three weeks after she left.”
Adrian sat slowly.
Alive.
The word should have relieved him.
Instead it made eleven months rearrange themselves into something uglier.
He had not been a father searching for a kidnapped daughter.
He had been a father searching for an adult daughter who did not want to be found.
“What did her email say?”
Victoria looked at her hands.
“That she was sorry.”
“For what?”
“For hurting me.”
Adrian waited.
“And?”
“She said not to tell you where she was.”
“You said you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t.”
“Did she contact you again?”
Victoria rubbed the diamond necklace with her thumb.
“Twice.”
Adrian looked at her.
“Dates.”
“December. Then March.”
“What did she say?”
“December was short. She said she had a job. She said she was fine.”
“Where?”
“She didn’t say.”
“March?”
Victoria closed her eyes.
“She asked about Blackthorn.”
Adrian’s face went numb.
“What did you tell her?”
“That he was difficult.”
“You told my daughter about the horse but not me about my daughter.”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of it broke something.
Adrian stood and walked into the hallway because he did not trust himself to remain in the room.
Victoria followed several minutes later.
He was sitting on the top stair.
“I hate you right now,” he said.
“I know.”
“I don’t know whether I’ll stop.”
“I know.”
“Why March?”
“What?”
“Why was that the last message?”
Victoria did not answer.
He looked at her.
She sat one stair below him.
“She said she was sick.”
Adrian went completely still.
“What kind of sick?”
“She didn’t say.”
“What did you do?”
“I asked.”
“And?”
“She never answered.”
He stood so fast Victoria flinched.
“You knew she was sick?”
“I knew she used that word.”
“And you said nothing?”
“She asked me not to.”
“She was my daughter.”
“She was also herself.”
“I could have helped her.”
“Maybe.”
“I could have found doctors.”
“Yes.”
“I could have—”
“Taken over.”
He stopped.
Victoria looked exhausted.
“That was what she was afraid of.”
Adrian walked downstairs.
In the kitchen he filled a glass with water and did not drink it.
Victoria remained in the doorway.
“You made me think she could be dead.”
“No. You chose to keep thinking that after the police told you they had no safety concern.”
“They never told me she was alive.”
“They told your attorney.”
Adrian looked up.
“What?”
“I saw the letter.”
“What letter?”
“The county counsel responded to your attorney’s demand for records. They said an adult individual believed to be Claire had made contact through legal counsel and declined further family contact.”
Adrian searched his memory.
There had been hundreds of pages.
Reports. Emails. Redactions.
His attorney had summarized them.
He had been furious about the redactions.
“Where is it?”
“In your files, probably.”
Adrian went to his office.
It took twenty-three minutes to find the document.
Victoria was right.
The language was formal, cautious, buried on the second page.
Law enforcement had received communication through counsel from an adult purporting to be Claire Elise Cole. Identity had been verified through methods not disclosed in the public response. The individual stated she was not in danger and did not consent to disclosure of her location.
Adrian read the paragraph four times.
Then the email beneath it.
His own response to his attorney.
This proves nothing. Anyone could have arranged that communication. Continue.
He sat back.
Victoria stood across the desk.
“You knew.”
He looked at the words he had written.
“I didn’t believe it.”
“No.”
“Why didn’t somebody make me believe it?”
The question sounded childish the moment it left him.
Victoria did not answer.
At four twelve in the morning Adrian drove to the stable.
Blackthorn was in his stall.
Lily and June were gone.
Mateo sat on an overturned bucket outside the tack room drinking coffee from a paper cup.
When Adrian approached, he stood.
“Sit.”
Mateo hesitated.
Adrian leaned against the stall door.
“When did you know about the ribbon?”
Mateo looked into his coffee.
“The morning after Miss Claire left.”
“You saw it.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She asked me a long time ago never to remove anything Lily braided into his mane.”
“Lily?”
“Both of them did it.”
Adrian looked through the bars.
Blackthorn was eating hay.
“He knew Lily.”
“Very well.”
“How well?”
Mateo smiled faintly.
“She used to sit on the mounting block and read him books.”
“What books?”
“I don’t know. Children’s books.”
“She read to a horse.”
“She was seven.”
Adrian nodded.
“Did Claire teach him to kneel?”
“Seems like.”
“You didn’t know?”
“Miss Claire did plenty around here she didn’t put on your schedule.”
The statement contained no accusation.
That made it worse.
Adrian looked at Mateo.
“Were you afraid of me too?”
Mateo considered it.
“Sometimes.”
Adrian nodded once.
“Why?”
Mateo’s eyebrows rose.
“You fire people.”
“When they don’t do their jobs.”
“Sometimes.”
Adrian waited.
Mateo drank coffee.
May you like
“Go ahead.”
“Mr. Cole, I have three kids and a mortgage.”
