Chương 8
His tone told me it was not good.
“What happened?”
“The SUV was empty.”
I closed my eyes.
“Of course it was.”
“We found something inside.”
“What?”
He held out a clear evidence bag.
Inside was a small blue notebook.
I recognized it immediately.
My stomach dropped.
“That’s Caleb’s.”
Detective Ross nodded.
“It was in the passenger seat.”
I looked at the cover.
A cartoon dinosaur.
A bent corner.
I had bought it for him at the grocery store because he saw it near the checkout and asked if dinosaurs could write stories.
I had laughed and said dinosaurs probably had better ideas than adults.
He had carried that notebook everywhere for a week.
“What’s inside?”
Detective Ross opened it carefully.
“Drawings.”
“Anything else?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
He turned the notebook around.
On one of the pages was a drawing of a house.
Not Caleb’s house.
Another house.
There was a tall person standing outside.
And a smaller figure inside a room.
At the bottom were letters.
Not words.
Just letters.
C.
D.
E.
I stared.
“What does that mean?”
Detective Ross looked at me.
“We were hoping you could tell us.”
I picked up the memory before I understood why.
Caleb learning letters.
The three letters he always practiced.
C was for Caleb.
D was for Daddy.
E was for Ethan.
But why were they written together?
Rachel looked over my shoulder.
“Maybe he was writing their names.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
I pointed.
“Look at the order.”
C.
D.
E.
Caleb.
Daddy.
Ethan.
My hands started shaking.
“He’s telling us something.”
Detective Ross leaned closer.
“What?”
I looked at the drawing again.
The tall figure.
The room.
The letters.
Then I noticed something else.
A small shape near the door.
A key.
My breath caught.
“Caleb knows what keys are.”
“What does that mean?”
I stood up.
“The door.”
Detective Ross waited.
“The hidden room.”
I looked toward the house.
“He wasn’t drawing where he was trapped.”
I swallowed.
“He was drawing how someone got him there.”
The detective’s expression changed.
“Explain.”
I pointed to the picture.
“He always draws things he remembers.”
I looked at the letters again.
“C, D, E.”
My voice became quieter.
“Caleb.”
“Daddy.”
“Ethan.”
Nobody spoke.
Because the meaning was becoming clear.
“He saw Ethan.”
Detective Ross nodded slowly.
“We already suspected that.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“He saw Ethan and someone else.”
I pointed to the drawing.
“The door.”
My eyes moved to the key.
“He’s showing us there was another person.”
Rachel frowned.
“But who?”
I looked at the picture.
The answer was not there.
Not completely.
But there was another memory.
A strange one.
A small moment from earlier that day.
Diane standing in my kitchen.
Holding Caleb’s blanket.
I had thought she was just being a grandmother.
I had thought she was comforting him.
But now I remembered something else.
She had not looked at Caleb.
She had been looking at the hallway.
At the hidden closet.
Detective Ross interrupted my thoughts.
“Where is Diane now?”
The officer beside him checked his radio.
“She left the area before we arrived.”
My heart sank.
“She knew.”
Detective Ross looked at me.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because she always knows.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
And for the first time that night, I heard how much fear was hidden inside them.
Diane did not just defend Ethan.
She anticipated him.
She covered for him.
She cleaned up after him.
A person could make one bad decision out of panic.
But Diane had been making decisions for years.
Detective Ross picked up his phone.
“We need to find her.”
The officer nodded.
Then another radio call came through.
Everyone stopped.
“Detective.”
The voice sounded urgent.
“We found a second location connected to the SUV.”
My heart started racing.
“Where?”
A pause.
Then:
“An old church property outside town.”
Detective Ross looked at me.
“Does that mean anything?”
I did not answer immediately.
Because it did.
Years ago, before Ethan and I got married, he took me there.
Not for a wedding.
Not for anything romantic.
Just to show me a place his family used to visit.
Diane had been there too.
She had stood beside me in that abandoned building and said something I never forgot.
Some families keep their secrets buried.
The smart ones build the walls first.
Back then, I thought she was joking.
Now I wondered if she had been warning me.
Or confessing.
Back then, I thought she was joking.
Now I wondered if she had been warning me.
Or confessing.
The drive to the old church property felt longer than the drive to the police station.
Nobody spoke much.
Detective Ross stayed focused on the road ahead.
Rachel sat beside me in the back seat.
Lily was with an officer who had been assigned to stay with her until everything was over.
That thought almost broke me.
Everything was over.
People said things like that when they talked about disasters.
After everything was over.
But my everything was still missing.
I stared out the window and watched houses pass by.
Families were inside those houses.
Children were probably brushing their teeth.
Parents were probably arguing about bedtime.
Someone was probably complaining about a television show.
Normal life continued everywhere.
Except mine.
“What happened at that church?” Detective Ross asked.
I looked toward him.
“I don’t know.”
“You went there before?”
“Yes.”
“With Ethan?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I searched my memory.
“He said his family used to own the land.”
“Used to?”
I nodded.
“His grandfather sold part of it years ago.”
“Did Ethan ever mention it recently?”
“No.”
Rachel looked at me.
“Wait.”
I turned.
“What?”
She frowned.
“Diane talked about that place after your wedding.”
My eyebrows pulled together.
“When?”
“I don’t remember exactly.”
Rachel looked frustrated.
“That was years ago.”
“What did she say?”
May you like
She stared out the window.
“She said Ethan was more like his grandfather than anyone realized.”
