Chương 13
On top of them lay Nora’s missing phone case.
Celia called Daniel from the sidewalk.
“I can’t go back inside.”
“I’m coming.”
“Police are here.”
“I’m coming.”
Toby heard enough to understand something had happened. He began shaking in the back seat.
Miriam, who had been driving him home, pulled into a grocery-store parking lot and called Dr. Ortiz’s recommended crisis counselor.
Daniel met them there instead of going to Celia.
Toby sat in the back seat with his hood pulled over his head. Daniel opened the door and crouched outside.
“Did Grandpa hurt Peanut?” Toby asked.
“No. Peanut’s okay.”
“He could have.”
“Yes.”
“He can go anywhere.”
“No.”
“He went to school. He went to Aunt Celia’s. He went to our basement.”
Daniel did not ask how Toby knew about the basement. Children collected adult whispers even when everyone believed they were playing.
“We’re going somewhere else tonight,” Daniel said.
“Where?”
“A safe place.”
“Like the hospital?”
“Not a hospital.”
“Will you be there?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
Daniel looked at Miriam.
She said nothing.
“Yes,” he told Toby.
The safe place was a furnished apartment used for protected witnesses and vulnerable cooperators. Agent Kim refused to call it a safe house.
“It is temporary lodging,” she said. “Security measures are limited. Do not assume invisibility.”
The apartment contained beige furniture, sealed windows, and a refrigerator filled with groceries chosen by someone who believed children ate only apple juice and string cheese.
Toby inspected every room.
“There’s no blue light,” he said.
Daniel unscrewed the bulbs from two night-lights and showed him the empty plastic.
Toby placed one beside the bed.
Celia slept on the couch under Miriam’s supervision arrangement because leaving her alone after the break-in seemed cruel, though Daniel still did not trust her judgment.
Elias was not permitted inside.
He sat in a car across the street until Agent Kim threatened to detain him.
At three in the morning, Daniel found Celia awake at the kitchen counter eating dry cereal from a mug.
“He used to do that,” she said.
“Who?”
“Dad. Turn all the pictures face down.”
Daniel opened the refrigerator and took out water.
“When?”
“When Mom was leaving.”
Daniel stopped.
Celia stared into the cereal.
“She packed photographs first. Dad came home and saw the empty spots on the walls. He made her put every picture on the dining table face down. He said if she wanted a life without him, she didn’t get to take proof that the old life existed.”
Daniel sat opposite her.
“I don’t remember that.”
“You were gone.”
“Where?”
“With Elias, probably.”
“I was seventeen when she left.”
Daniel frowned.
“I thought she left when I was nine.”
Celia looked up.
“She came back.”
The refrigerator motor started.
Daniel stared at her.
“When?”
“A few months after you ran away. She called Dad. He let her return.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You never asked.”
“I thought she was gone.”
“Dad wanted you to think that.”
“Did she ask about me?”
Celia’s face twisted.
“All the time.”
Daniel pushed back from the counter.
“No.”
“She wrote letters.”
“No.”
“Dad burned them.”
“You saw him?”
“I found pieces in the fireplace.”
Daniel stood.
Celia’s voice rose. “You don’t get to say no because you hate it.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said she came back.”
“She left again when I was seventeen. That’s when the pictures—”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Victor hurt her?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel paced to the window, though the blinds were closed.
Celia spoke more quietly.
“She told me she was sorry she didn’t take us the first time. She said Dad had threatened to report her for kidnapping if she tried.”
“She was our mother.”
“Custody orders exist.”
“Not back then.”
“There was one. Dad got one after she left. He knew a judge.”
The ledger contained judges’ names.
Daniel pressed his fist against his mouth.
Celia continued. “She wanted me to go with her the second time. I said no.”
“Why?”
“I thought she’d leave again.”
Daniel looked at his sister.
Her hands trembled around the mug.
“So I stayed,” she said. “And then Dad told me she was dead.”
“Was she?”
“He showed me an obituary for a woman with her name in Ohio.”
“Did you verify it?”
“I was seventeen.”
The answer was not defensive. It was small.
Daniel sat again.
For years, he had built his hatred of Victor around a single abandonment. His mother had left. Victor had told him why. Daniel had accepted the wound because accepting it required less uncertainty than questioning it.
“Victor said Toby’s daddy wasn’t coming,” Celia whispered. “He knew what those words would do to you.”
Daniel stared at the cereal crumbs on the counter.
“He wanted me to call Elias.”
“Yes.”
“He wanted the bank opened.”
“Yes.”
“He knew Nora made copies.”
“Maybe.”
“No. He knew enough about the blue light. He knew the box existed but didn’t have the key.”
“Then why not take the night-light?”
“He didn’t know where Nora hid it. He searched the storage unit, took the phone, found the repair receipt, found the passcode, but the phone didn’t contain the files. It probably contained a photograph of the night-light or a note about Toby’s room.”
Celia looked toward the hallway.
“He hurt Toby because he couldn’t find a key.”
Daniel’s voice went flat.
“He hurt Toby because he wanted me to move.”
His phone vibrated.
A message from Victor appeared.
YOU FOUND WHAT SHE HID.
A photograph followed.
It showed Daniel entering the bank with Rebecca and the agents.
Then another photograph.
Toby stepping from Miriam’s car outside the temporary apartment.
Daniel stood so quickly the stool fell.
Celia covered her mouth.
A third message arrived.
BRING THE DRIVE. COME ALONE. ASK ELIAS WHERE WE BURIED LAKE.
May you like
Daniel called Agent Kim.
Within twelve minutes, the building’s security team moved Toby and Celia to an interior room. Agents searched nearby vehicles and rooftops. The photograph of Toby had been taken from an angle suggesting a second-floor window across the street, but the apartment there was vacant.
