Chương 10
“Anna. Are you injured?”
“Yes.”
“How badly?”
“Not dying.”
“Who has you?”
“No one.”
Richard stared at the phone.
Brooks leaned closer.
Anna continued. “I got away.”
“From Cole?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“I need you to do something first.”
“No.”
“Dad.”
The word struck harder than anything else had.
Richard gripped the phone.
“Tell me where you are.”
“I need the card.”
Brooks’s expression changed.
Richard said nothing.
Anna whispered, “Please.”
“Why?”
“Because the card isn’t enough.”
“What is enough?”
“You have the key?”
“Yes.”
“The locker?”
“Opened.”
“Then you have the phone.”
“Police have it.”
“Damn it.”
“What’s on the phone?”
“Nothing unless you have the password.”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
Richard almost shouted.
He caught himself.
“Anna.”
“I need to know Lucy is actually with you.”
“She is.”
“Put her on.”
Brooks shook her head.
Richard ignored her.
He went upstairs.
Lucy sat on the floor of the sewing room reading one of Margaret’s old mystery novels.
When she saw his face, she stood.
“What?”
He held out the phone.
“Your mother.”
The book fell from her hands.
Lucy grabbed the phone.
“Mommy?”
Whatever Anna said was too quiet for Richard to hear.
Lucy’s face crumpled.
She did not cry theatrically.
She sat down hard on the bed and pressed one fist to her mouth.
“You left me.”
Another pause.
“No, you did.”
Richard turned away.
Brooks stood in the hall, listening despite trying not to.
Lucy said, “I waited.”
Her voice broke.
“You said five minutes.”
A long silence.
Then: “I hate you.”
Richard looked back.
Lucy’s eyes were wet.
“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”
She held the phone away from her ear as if the voice itself hurt.
Richard crouched, not touching her.
“Lucy.”
She shoved the phone toward him.
“You talk.”
Richard took it.
Anna said his name.
“Tell us where you are.”
“I can’t yet.”
“Your daughter thinks you abandoned her.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I was trying to keep her alive.”
“Then stop speaking in riddles and tell us where you are.”
Brooks mouthed, Keep her talking.
Anna’s breathing changed.
“I’m at a motel off Route Nine.”
“Which motel?”
“I need you alone.”
“No.”
“Then I leave.”
Richard stood.
“You don’t get to disappear again.”
Silence.
He regretted it even as he said it.
Anna’s voice became cold.
“There he is.”
“Anna—”
“You couldn’t wait five minutes.”
“You asked me to bring a seven-year-old into an unknown situation while you’re being pursued.”
“I asked you to come alone.”
“And leave her?”
“With police.”
“You told her not to trust police.”
“Not all police.”
“You gave her no way to know the difference.”
“I didn’t have time.”
“You had twenty-one years.”
Brooks closed her eyes.
Richard’s chest hurt.
Anna said, “Goodbye.”
“Wait.”
The line went dead.
Shah was already moving.
“Trace?”
Brooks asked.
“Partial. Cell tower sector near Route Nine and Palmetto. Several motels.”
Richard looked at Lucy.
She had curled around the doll.
Brooks said, “We move now.”
They found Anna forty-three minutes later at a roadside motel between a tire shop and a closed family restaurant.
She had already left.
The room contained bloodied gauze, a half-empty bottle of water, a cheap first-aid kit, and a burner phone smashed beneath the bathroom sink.
Security video showed a woman matching Anna leaving six minutes before police arrived.
She walked with a limp.
No one followed her.
Richard stood in the motel parking lot under a weak yellow light while Brooks coordinated a search.
Walter arrived in his own car.
“You pushed too hard,” he said.
Richard did not answer.
“You always push until people choose between surrender and escape.”
“I know.”
Walter stopped.
Richard had rarely said those words.
He looked at him.
Richard stared at the wet pavement.
“I know.”
Lucy remained at Richard’s house with Helen and Ruiz. Richard had wanted to return immediately. Brooks had asked him to stay because Anna might call again.
She did not.
The next morning, Halcyon Medical Systems issued a public statement.
An employee had stolen confidential information and attempted extortion.
The company was cooperating fully with law enforcement.
It did not name Anna.
By noon, reporters had the name anyway.
By one, someone had connected Anne Mercer to Anna Vale, missing daughter of former prosecutor Richard Vale.
By two, Richard’s driveway contained three news vans.
Lucy stood behind the living-room curtain.
“Why are they here?”
“Because people are curious.”
“They know Mommy?”
“They know about her.”
“Are they helping?”
“No.”
“Then why are they here?”
Richard had no answer suitable for a child.
Walter did.
“Because television has hours to fill.”
Lucy looked at him.
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
Richard said, “Don’t encourage her.”
Walter ate a cookie.
“She doesn’t need me.”
Public reaction split quickly and inaccurately.
Some reports called Anna a whistleblower.
Others called her an accused corporate extortionist.
Old footage of Richard outside courthouses resurfaced. Commentators discussed his career, his reputation for aggressive prosecution, his daughter’s disappearance, the old boyfriend found dead.
A headline asked whether the Vale family tragedy had been a fraud for decades.
Richard turned off the television.
Lucy said, “Put it back.”
“No.”
“I want to see.”
“No.”
“You said I don’t need permission for things.”
“That was sleeping.”
“You change rules.”
“Yes.”
“That’s cheating.”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
Richard said, “You’re seven. I’m allowed to make some decisions you hate.”
“Mommy says adults say that when they don’t have a good reason.”
“My reason is that strangers speculating about your mother for money will not help you.”
Lucy looked toward the dark television screen.
“They said she stole.”
“She may have taken data she wasn’t allowed to take.”
“That means stole.”
“Legally, maybe.”
“Did she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You always say that.”
“It’s often true.”
Lucy’s eyes hardened.
“You don’t believe her.”
Richard felt the accusation.
“I believe she was afraid.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
She left the room.
Walter watched her go.
May you like
“You’re getting better.”
“At what?”
