Chương 2
Sophie pressing her forehead between Rachel’s shoulder blades while Mara spoke to another officer.
The tracker still lying in the puddle until a gloved evidence technician photographed it.
The wedding ring.
Always the wedding ring.
It sat inside a clear bag on the hood of the patrol vehicle, ridiculously small for the amount of damage it had done.
Rachel kept expecting someone to tell her she had misunderstood.
That was an old habit.
During the last two years of her marriage she had learned to wait for Ethan’s explanation before trusting her own discomfort. He had never hit her. She had repeated that fact so often that it had become an argument against every other form of fear.
He never hit me.
He only checked the mileage on her car and asked where the extra eleven miles came from.
He never hit me.
He only called three times when she took too long at the grocery store, then told her he worried because she was careless.
He never hit me.
He only knew when a male coworker had texted her about a shift change because he had once connected her messages to the old family tablet without mentioning it.
He never hit me.
There were years when that sentence felt like proof that she was lucky.
Standing in the garage while airport police photographed a GPS tracker her eight-year-old said had been hidden inside a teddy bear, Rachel finally heard how little the sentence proved.
An officer named Patel crouched several feet from Sophie.
He did not ask her to repeat what she had said.
That was the first thing Rachel liked about him.
He asked whether she wanted some water.
Sophie shook her head.
“Hot chocolate?”
Another shake.
“You’re making this hard on me. Airport vending machines have almost nothing else.”
Sophie looked at him then.
“For dinner?”
“For any recognized meal.”
Her mouth twitched.
Patel stood. “I’ll find you something that isn’t from a machine.”
When he walked away, Rachel almost cried.
Not because she was relieved.
Because he had talked to Sophie like she was still a child.
Ethan had stopped doing that somewhere during the separation. He spoke to her as if she were a witness he was entitled to persuade.
Your mom gets confused when she’s stressed.
Your mom doesn’t like my family.
Your mom wants to make it hard for me to see you.
Rachel had complained through her lawyer.
The lawyer had written emails using phrases like triangulation and inappropriate communication.
Nothing in those emails had prepared Rachel for hearing Sophie say, He said we’d be gone before you woke up.
Mara came over from the booth.
“You have somebody who can pick you two up?”
“My car’s here.”
“You’re not driving.”
“I can drive.”
“I know.”
Mara looked toward Ethan, who was now seated on the rear bumper of a police SUV while an officer spoke to him.
“You’re still not driving.”
Rachel started to argue and discovered she did not have the energy.
“My sister.”
“Call her.”
Rachel took out her phone.
There were eleven missed calls.
Three from Ethan.
Four from her attorney.
Two from her supervisor.
One from her sister, Julie.
One from an unknown number she later learned belonged to airport police.
The screen also showed a text Ethan had sent forty-one minutes earlier.
I’m here to get Sophie. Don’t make this ugly.
Rachel read it three times.
She had not seen it because her phone had been inside her raincoat pocket while Mara showed her the security footage.
She pressed Julie’s name.
Her sister answered on the first ring.
“What happened?”
Rachel heard restaurant noise behind her, plates and music and people having an ordinary Tuesday night.
“Can you come to employee garage C?”
“Why?”
“I need you to get Sophie.”
A pause.
“Is Ethan there?”
“Yes.”
“Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Did he touch Sophie?”
“No.”
Rachel looked at Ethan.
“I don’t think so.”
Julie’s voice changed.
“What does that mean?”
“Just come.”
“I’m leaving.”
Rachel almost hung up.
“Julie.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t post anything.”
“What?”
“Don’t tell anyone yet.”
“I wasn’t going to—”
“You were thinking about it.”
“I was thinking about calling Mom.”
“No.”
Another pause.
“Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“I said fine, Rach.”
Rachel ended the call before irritation could turn into a fight.
Even that felt normal enough to be comforting.
Two hours earlier, Rachel had been irritated because Julie had borrowed her good black boots and returned them with salt stains. Now she wanted desperately to be angry about boots again.
Mara led Sophie into the glass booth while officers worked outside.
The booth smelled faintly of coffee, wet wool, and the lemon cleaner used by the overnight custodial crew. A small ceramic frog sat beside one monitor. Someone had glued one of its broken eyes back on crooked.
Sophie noticed it.
“What happened to him?”
Mara followed her gaze.
“Occupational injury.”
“What’s his job?”
“Watching people make bad parking decisions.”
Sophie looked at Rachel to see whether she was allowed to smile.
Rachel nodded.
The child smiled for less than a second.
Then she asked, “Am I in trouble?”
The question landed harder than the accusation in the garage.
Rachel pulled a chair close but did not grab her.
“No.”
“I wasn’t supposed to tell.”
“You can tell me anything.”
“Daddy said it was for a game.”
Rachel felt Mara become very still at the desk.
“What kind of game?”
Sophie looked down at her backpack.
Rachel stopped herself.
This was exactly what Officer Patel had avoided doing.
“You don’t have to tell me right now.”
Sophie picked at one loose thread near the zipper.
“He said it would help him find Mr. Paws.”
Mr. Paws was the teddy bear Ethan had bought her at the Denver airport when she was four.
May you like
One ear bent permanently forward. Its nose had been sewn back on twice.
Rachel had thrown it into the laundry that morning because Sophie had spilled chocolate milk over one side.
