Chương 4
“He’s technically registered under the volunteer emergency-response program.”
Everett looked past Daniel toward the waiting area.
Scout was asleep with his nose on Caleb’s shoe.
“I don’t think anybody’s taking his credential tonight.”
Daniel went home at three-thirty in the morning.
Scout did not.
Caleb had finally fallen asleep just before police released the family to leave. When Daniel crouched to clip the leash onto Scout’s collar, Caleb woke instantly.
“No.”
The word came out before his eyes were fully open.
Daniel stopped.
Caleb sat up.
He looked embarrassed.
“I mean—can he come?”
Hannah glanced at Daniel.
There were a dozen sensible reasons to say no.
Scout was a working search dog with routines. Daniel barely knew these people. Police had told the Reeds not to return home until officers checked the property. They would be staying at a downtown hotel for the night.
Daniel asked, “Does the hotel allow dogs?”
Hannah laughed once.
It was an exhausted sound.
“I will buy the hotel if they don’t.”
So Scout went with them.
Daniel drove home alone.
His house in West Seattle was dark except for the stove clock.
3:58.
He stood in the kitchen in wet socks and stared at the microwave because he had forgotten why he had walked into the room.
His former wife, Nicole, had hated that habit.
You enter rooms like you expect them to tell you what to do.
He could hear her saying it.
Daniel opened the refrigerator.
Mustard. Eggs. Half a carton of milk. Leftover Thai food he did not remember ordering.
He closed it.
Then opened it again.
Nothing had changed.
At four-seventeen his phone rang.
Laura.
He answered immediately.
“Kids okay?”
“Scout snores.”
Daniel sat down.
“What?”
“Like a grown man with sinus problems. Caleb thinks it’s hilarious.”
Daniel pressed the heel of his hand into one eye.
“Yeah.”
“You knew?”
“I live with him.”
There was a pause.
Then Laura said, “They found something in the van.”
Daniel straightened.
“What?”
“I’m not supposed to know.”
“Then why do you know?”
“Because a detective asked me if I had ever seen a blue tablet case.”
Daniel waited.
“Hannah’s old kitchen tablet has a blue case.”
Laura lowered her voice even though there was no reason to.
“They found it under the passenger seat.”
The tablet became the first piece of evidence that changed the case from an impulsive abduction attempt into something planned.
Hannah identified it the next morning.
The device was six years old, a scratched family tablet the children used for games, recipes, and video calls when somebody’s phone battery died. It had disappeared three weeks earlier.
Nobody had reported it missing.
Hannah thought Caleb had taken it to his father’s condo.
Caleb thought Sophie had hidden it after an argument over a game.
Sophie believed it was “probably in the laundry place,” by which she meant the narrow shelf above the washer where lost electronics occasionally turned up beneath folded towels.
The tablet contained access to an old family email account that Hannah had forgotten was still signed in.
That account had been used to send the false message Caleb saw.
The message appeared to come from Owen.
It did not require Marcus to hack anything.
He only needed the tablet.
That created the next question.
How had he gotten inside Hannah’s home?
Police found no forced entry.
The building’s hallway cameras provided part of the answer.
Nine days before the abduction attempt, Marcus entered the apartment building behind a delivery driver at 2:14 in the afternoon. He carried a cardboard toolbox and wore a gray maintenance jacket with no company name visible.
At 2:19, he appeared on the twelfth-floor camera.
At 2:22, he disappeared from view near the Reeds’ door.
At 2:31, he returned to the elevator carrying the same toolbox.
Hannah sat in a police interview room and watched the footage twice.
Then she asked to see the frame where Marcus turned toward the camera.
The detective paused it.
“That jacket,” Hannah said.
“What about it?”
“He wore that when he worked for Owen.”
Owen looked down.
Hannah turned toward him slowly.
“You told me you barely knew him.”
“I said I didn’t know him socially.”
“He worked for you?”
“He subcontracted on two sites.”
“For how long?”
“Maybe a year.”
“You told the police last night he was a guy from an old business dispute.”
“He was.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Owen rubbed his face.
The cut on his cheek had been closed with medical adhesive. It pulled slightly when he spoke.
“Hannah.”
“How long?”
“About fourteen months.”
“Did he ever come to the house?”
Owen did not answer.
The detective stopped the video.
“Owen.”
“Once.”
Hannah stood.
The detective asked her to sit down.
She ignored him.
“You brought him into our home?”
“It was years ago.”
“You said you barely knew him.”
“I barely did.”
“You knew him well enough to bring him home.”
“It was a project dinner. Four people came.”
“Did he know the kids?”
“No.”
Caleb spoke from the far end of the room.
“Yes.”
Everyone turned.
He had been allowed to sit in only because a child interviewer was coming to take him next door and he refused to wait away from Hannah.
Caleb’s face was pale again.
“He knew my old room.”
Owen stared at him.
“What?”
“In the van.”
Hannah sat back down.
Caleb looked at the floor.
“He told me I used to have the room with the green wall and the space stickers.”
Sophie shifted against Laura.
Their old apartment had been sold three years earlier.
Owen’s voice became thin.
“Marcus was never there.”
Hannah looked at him.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Caleb shook his head.
“He said the stars peeled off near the window because Dad put them up wrong.”
Owen stopped breathing for a moment.
That detail did not belong to Marcus.
May you like
It belonged to the family.
Hannah had teased Owen about those stickers for years. He had applied the removable stars too close to a heater vent, and by the first winter the corners curled.
