Chương 5
“Mom, please.”
The old anger rose with humiliating ease.
Four years vanished, and Evelyn was back in the library telling Caroline that love did not exempt anyone from consequences.
Then Sophie whispered, “Mommy?”
Caroline broke.
“Oh, baby.”
“I did what you said.”
“I know you did.”
“Are you coming?”
A pause followed.
It was small.
It was also the worst thing Evelyn had heard all night.
“I’m trying.”
Sophie began crying without making a sound.
Evelyn put one hand on her shoulder.
This time the child leaned into it.
Caroline drew a ragged breath.
“Mom, the key.”
“I have it.”
“Go to Union Station.”
“Why?”
“Lower level, east lockers.”
Evelyn stared at the brass key on the counter.
“Which locker?”
“You’ll know.”
“I specifically do not know.”
“Look at the key.”
Evelyn turned it beneath the pendant light.
Near the bow, almost invisible beneath tarnish, three numbers had been scratched into the brass.
317.
“Caroline, what is in locker 317?”
“The reason Daniel came for Sophie.”
The line went dead.
Evelyn stared at the silent phone as if Caroline might return by force of irritation alone.
Sophie wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand.
“Call her back.”
“I’m trying.”
The number went straight to a recorded message saying the subscriber could not be reached.
Evelyn tried again anyway.
Sergeant Ortiz held out her hand.
“May I see the number?”
Evelyn showed her the screen without surrendering the phone.
Ortiz copied it into her notebook.
“We can request subscriber information and location data, but that isn’t instant.”
“She said no police.”
“People in trouble say lots of things.”
“She also said the blood wasn’t hers.”
“That’s useful, assuming she was telling the truth.”
Sophie stiffened against Evelyn’s side.
“My mom doesn’t lie.”
Ortiz’s expression softened without becoming dishonest.
“Everybody lies sometimes.”
“My mom doesn’t.”
“Then I hope she’s making my job easy tonight.”
Officer Bell’s radio crackled again from the hallway.
Martin had gone unnaturally quiet, which Evelyn recognized as his way of becoming more worried than he wished anyone to notice.
He picked up the ugly slippers Sophie had kicked off and set them neatly beside the mudroom door.
Evelyn looked at the key.
“Union Station is twenty minutes from here.”
“Closer to thirty in this rain,” Martin said.
“I wasn’t asking for traffic analysis.”
“No, you were preparing to leave.”
Ortiz folded her notebook shut.
“You’re not going alone.”
“I did not invite you.”
“That simplifies things because I wasn’t asking.”
Sophie stepped forward.
“I’m coming.”
Three adults answered at once.
“No.”
Sophie glared at all of them.
“Mom sent the key with me.”
“She sent you here,” Evelyn said.
“She didn’t send you back into whatever frightened her enough to do that.”
“You don’t know what frightened her.”
“No, and until I do, you remain in this house.”
“With him outside?”
The question silenced Evelyn.
Martin looked toward the dark windows.
“I’ll stay with her.”
Sophie shook her head so hard wet strands of hair slapped her cheeks.
“No.”
“Sophie—”
“I don’t know him.”
Martin put a hand against his chest.
“I’m wounded.”
“I don’t care.”
“That makes it worse.”
She did not smile this time.
Evelyn understood the problem with a sudden, unpleasant clarity.
Sophie had arrived at the house because Caroline had named Evelyn, not because the house itself was safe.
The child trusted exactly one person in the room, and that trust was thin enough to see through.
Ortiz seemed to reach the same conclusion.
“We can take her with us and keep her in the patrol car while we check the locker.”
“No.”
Evelyn and Sophie said it together.
Ortiz rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“I’m beginning to understand the family resemblance.”
A pounding sounded somewhere beyond the front hall.
Sophie flinched.
Martin was moving before anyone else.
Officer Bell intercepted him near the kitchen doorway.
“Stay here.”
The pounding came again, muffled by distance and expensive walls.
Daniel Cross was apparently done waiting politely at the gate.
Sophie reached for Evelyn’s hand.
“He does that.”
“What?”
“Hits doors when people don’t open them.”
Evelyn closed her fingers around the child’s.
Outside, a man shouted something they could not make out.
Ortiz’s radio came alive.
She listened, answered briefly, then looked at Bell.
“Cross is demanding enforcement of the order.”
“Verified?” Evelyn asked.
“Not yet.”
“Then he can demand the moon.”
“He’s also claiming you’re attempting to conceal Sophie.”
“I have been acquainted with the child for approximately two hours.”
“That doesn’t make concealment impossible.”
“It does make it inefficient.”
Martin gave her a tired look.
“Only you could make kidnapping sound like poor administration.”
The absurdity caught Sophie by surprise.
A wet little laugh escaped her before she covered it with her hand.
Evelyn felt an almost painful gratitude toward Martin.
Then Ortiz’s phone rang.
She answered, listened for less than a minute, and her posture changed.
“What is it?” Evelyn asked.
Ortiz ended the call.
“The guardianship order exists.”
Sophie stopped laughing.
Evelyn felt her hand go cold.
Ortiz continued before anyone could speak.
“It was filed three months ago, as Cross said, but there’s a problem.”
“What problem?”
“The copy he showed us isn’t identical to the court record.”
Martin swore softly.
Evelyn leaned forward.
“How?”
“The filed order gives him temporary authority over medical decisions in a specific emergency.”
“And his copy?”
“Broader language.”
“Custody?”
“Effectively.”
Sophie whispered, “He changed it.”
Ortiz looked at Bell.
“I want the document photographed and preserved.”
Bell left immediately.
Evelyn’s eyes went to the brass key.
Daniel had arrived with altered paperwork on the same night Caroline disappeared and sent Sophie away with a hidden key.
The facts did not yet form an answer, but they had begun refusing to be coincidences.
“We go to the station now,” Evelyn said.
Ortiz nodded.
“Bell drives.”
“I have a car.”
“And Bell has lights.”
“I despise being practical at moments like this.”
May you like
“That makes two of us.”
Martin fetched Evelyn’s coat while Sophie remained attached to her hand.
