Chương 5
A message from Vanessa arrived.
Picking Nora up early.
She says her stomach hurts.
I typed nothing.
Thirty seconds later, my phone rang.
Vanessa.
I let it ring twice before answering.
“Hey.”
Her voice was light.
“Thought you were boarding.”
“Delay.”
“You sound weird.”
“Bad coffee.”
There was a pause.
Behind her, I could hear a car door open.
“Nora isn’t feeling great,” she said.
“I’m taking her home.”
I looked at the location dot.
It had begun moving again.
“Okay.”
Caleb turned sharply onto the school’s street.
“What gate did you use?”
I asked.
“Why?”
“So I know where to meet you when I get back tonight.”
Another pause.
Longer this time.
“You’re in Denver tonight.”
“Right.”
The mistake sat between us.
I could almost hear her thinking.
“Ethan,” she said quietly.
I saw her SUV two cars ahead of us pulling away from the curb.
“Where are you?”
“I’m still at the airport,” I said.
Vanessa did not answer immediately.
Her SUV moved through the light ahead of us and turned south instead of toward our house.
Caleb stayed two cars back.
“Which terminal?” she asked.
I looked at the clock on the dashboard.
“Two.”
“You always fly United out of Terminal Two?”
The question was almost casual.
Almost.
“Today I do.”
A silence opened.
Then she said, “Your flight was supposed to leave already.”
“Mechanical delay.”
I hated how quickly the lie came.
Ahead of us, Vanessa changed lanes without signaling.
Her voice went flat.
“Put Nora on the phone.”
“I thought she was with you.”
Another silence.
I had made the wrong move.
Caleb glanced at me and shook his head once.
Vanessa said, “Ethan, where are you?”
I ended the call.
Ten seconds later, she accelerated.
“Now she knows,” I said.
“She suspected before.”
“That helped?”
“No.”
He reached for his phone.
“I’m calling the school and getting their documentation started.”
“What about police?”
“You call.”
I dialed 911.
I had imagined emergency calls differently.
I expected urgency to sound dramatic.
Instead, the dispatcher was calm enough to make me feel as though my panic was a substance she had to prevent from spilling.
I gave Vanessa’s name, the make and plate of the SUV, Nora’s age, and the limited facts we had.
When I said I possessed video suggesting my wife had put an unknown liquid into my daughter’s drink, the dispatcher asked whether Nora appeared in immediate medical distress.
“I can’t see her.”
“Do you believe Mrs. Blake intends to harm her right now?”
“I don’t know.”
The words tasted useless.
“I believe she has harmed her before.”
The dispatcher asked our direction of travel.
Caleb supplied the cross street.
I repeated it.
Then the SUV ahead turned onto Rosecrans.
Traffic thickened.
For a moment I thought that might help us.
Then Vanessa cut across two lanes and disappeared behind a delivery van.
“Don’t chase,” the dispatcher said when she heard my voice rise.
“We have units in the area.”
“She has my daughter.”
“Mr. Blake, do not create another hazard.”
I gripped the door handle and watched red brake lights pulse ahead of us.
Caleb drove steadily.
It made me furious.
“Can you go around them?”
“No.”
“She’s getting away.”
“She’s in city traffic, not a helicopter.”
“She knows we’re behind her.”
“Which is why I’m not driving like an idiot.”
My phone vibrated.
Vanessa had sent a text.
You are making a terrible mistake.
I showed Caleb.
“Don’t answer.”
A second message appeared.
Nora is fine and I am taking her somewhere quiet because you are obviously not thinking clearly.
Then a third.
If you involve police, you will traumatize her for nothing.
My thumb hovered over the keyboard.
Caleb said, “Save them.”
I took screenshots automatically, then felt stupid because the messages already existed on the phone.
Fear makes you do redundant things.
We reached the intersection just as the light changed.
Vanessa’s SUV was gone.
I scanned every lane.
“Where?”
Caleb pointed.
“There.”
She had turned into a shopping center.
Her vehicle rolled past a grocery store, a nail salon, and a bank before stopping near the far edge of the lot.
Caleb parked several rows away.
“Stay in the car.”
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“No.”
Through the windshield, I saw Vanessa get out.
She opened the rear passenger door.
Nora climbed down clutching her backpack.
Even from a distance, I could see my daughter crying.
That eliminated whatever restraint I had left.
I was out of Caleb’s truck before he could stop me.
“Ethan.”
I crossed between parked cars.
Vanessa saw me when I was perhaps fifty feet away.
Her face changed once.
Not surprise.
Calculation.
She took Nora by the wrist.
Nora twisted toward me.
“Daddy.”
I broke into a run.
Vanessa pulled Nora behind her.
“Stop.”
I stopped because Nora was between us.
“Let her go.”
“You are terrifying her.”
Nora was crying harder now.
Vanessa’s grip remained around her wrist.
“Let go of my daughter.”
“She is my family too.”
“Vanessa.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
People had started looking.
A man loading groceries into a minivan stopped with a case of bottled water halfway into the trunk.
Vanessa noticed the attention.
Her voice lowered.
“You’re following me through a parking lot, screaming.”
“I’m not screaming.”
“You called the police.”
“So you know why.”
She stared at me.
That was confirmation enough that she had either guessed or spoken to the school.
Nora tried to pull away.
Vanessa released her.
My daughter ran into me hard enough to knock me back a step.
I wrapped both arms around her.
She buried her face against my stomach.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
The apology nearly broke something in me.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“See what you’ve done?”
I looked at her.
For the first time since the coffee shop, anger sharpened into something cleaner.
“You need to stop talking.”
Her face went pale.
“Excuse me?”
May you like
“Not to Nora.”
A patrol car entered the lot with no siren.
