Chương 9
“Did your mother ask him to leave?”
“No.”
“Did you feel safe staying?”
“No.”
“So you contacted your father.”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you to run away?”
“No.”
“Did he know before you called?”
“No.”
“Did he take you to the Bahamas?”
“Yes.”
“Did you want to go?”
“At the time.”
“What changed?”
Maya looked off screen.
“My aunt is nice.”
That answer made Rachel laugh quietly from somewhere outside the camera frame.
Maya almost smiled.
Then she said, “But Dad wouldn’t tell me when I could go home. Every time I asked, he said after the hearing or after the investigator or after Mom understood. It kept moving.”
“Did you feel prevented from leaving?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could you have left the house?”
“Yes.”
“Could you have bought a ticket?”
“I’m sixteen.”
“Did you have your passport?”
“Dad had it at first. Aunt Rachel gave it back after we fought about it.”
Daniel lowered his head.
“Did your father threaten you?”
“No.”
“Did he pressure you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He kept saying if I went home too early, Sophie might not be safe.”
Laura gripped the edge of the table.
Maya continued.
“I asked him to bring Sophie so I could see her.”
“Did you ask him to take Sophie without her mother’s permission?”
“No.”
“Did you know he planned to fly her to you tonight?”
“No.”
Daniel looked up.
That was the moment his last defense disappeared.
He had told himself Maya wanted this.
She had wanted contact.
He had supplied the rest.
Maya said, “I thought he meant video.”
Shaw asked about the phone.
Maya explained she had taken an older smartphone from a box in Marcus’s home office months earlier after her own phone was confiscated during an argument.
She had used it for Wi-Fi in her bedroom.
Marcus had apparently forgotten it was still associated with his cloud account.
Maya discovered photographs syncing to it.
At first they were ordinary.
Receipts.
Worksite pictures.
Pictures of Marcus’s dog.
Then she found images taken inside the Carter house.
Some were of Laura asleep on the couch.
Some were of Maya in her room.
None showed nudity.
Several were still disturbing enough that Maya stopped describing them.
One image appeared to have been taken from high near the ceiling.
Shaw asked whether Maya still possessed the phone.
“Yes.”
“Has anyone opened it since you found the images?”
“Aunt Rachel turned it off.”
“Did she delete anything?”
“No.”
“Did your father handle it?”
“No.”
“Your mother?”
“No.”
“Marcus?”
“No.”
“Would you be willing to give it to Bahamian authorities or arrange transfer through appropriate channels?”
Maya looked exhausted.
“Yes.”
Then she said, “But I’m not staying here another month because my parents can’t stop fighting.”
The interview specialist asked what Maya wanted.
“I want to come home.”
“Where do you feel safe staying?”
Maya’s eyes filled for the first time.
“I don’t know.”
It was the most truthful answer anyone had given all night.
By sunrise, the rain had stopped.
The jet remained at the gate.
Its pilots had been released to a hotel.
The black fuselage looked less threatening in daylight.
Just machinery.
Sophie woke on Victoria’s office sofa with one shoe missing and a crease across her cheek.
For several seconds she did not know where she was.
Then she saw the silver boarding card on the desk inside a clear evidence sleeve.
Everything returned.
Victoria was sitting near the window with coffee.
“You snore,” Sophie said.
Victoria looked over.
“I wasn’t asleep.”
“No. I mean I snore.”
“You do.”
“My sister says I sound like a tiny lawn mower.”
“That’s accurate.”
Sophie sat up.
“Is Maya coming home?”
Victoria set down the coffee.
“I don’t know.”
Sophie sighed.
“I hate that answer.”
“So do adults.”
“No, you don’t. Adults use it all the time.”
Victoria could not argue.
“Where’s Dad?”
“Still here.”
“Mom?”
“Also here.”
“Are they fighting?”
“Not currently.”
“That means they were.”
Victoria walked over and handed Sophie the missing shoe.
Sophie put it on.
“Can I see Dad?”
Victoria hesitated.
“I can ask the detective.”
Sophie noticed.
“You think he’s bad.”
“No.”
“You stopped the plane.”
“Yes.”
“That means you think he’s bad.”
“It means I believed you were scared and needed the plane stopped.”
Sophie frowned.
Victoria continued.
“Those are different decisions.”
“Would you have stopped it if Dad was poor?”
The question surprised her.
“What?”
“If it wasn’t a private plane.”
“Yes.”
Sophie studied her face.
“You answered too fast.”
Victoria laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the child was right.
“I hope I would.”
Sophie accepted that.
Detective Shaw allowed a short supervised conversation between Sophie and Daniel.
They sat in a conference room without a table between them.
Daniel looked as if he had aged during the night.
His shirt was wrinkled.
His suit jacket was gone.
Sophie had almost never seen him in public without appearing finished.
That unsettled her.
He did not reach for her.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Sophie looked at his hands.
“For what?”
Daniel took a breath.
“For lying about dinner. For bringing your passport without telling you. For letting the wrong name stay on the manifest. For taking you somewhere you had not agreed to go.”
“You’re doing a list.”
He stopped.
She was right.
“Okay.”
He rubbed his palms against his trousers.
“I scared you.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sophie looked toward the observation window.
“Did you kidnap Maya?”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“I helped her leave because I thought she was in danger.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.”
He waited.
“I don’t know what the right word is.”
“Did she want to go?”
“At first.”
“Did she want to stay?”
“Not as long as I made her.”
Sophie absorbed that.
“Why didn’t you bring her home?”
“Because Marcus was there.”
“You could have made him leave.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Mom could.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask her?”
“Yes.”
“Did she say no?”
“More or less.”
May you like
Sophie became quiet.
Then she asked, “Why did you tell Maya she couldn’t come home?”
