Chương 9
Maya kept checking.
Not obsessively, she told herself.
Professionally.
She read supplemental reports.
She asked Nina about the next hearing.
She drove past Ethan's school twice while on patrol when her route did not require it.
Ortega noticed the second time.
He was in the passenger seat because his vehicle was in maintenance.
“You missed the turn.”
“No, I didn't.”
“We're going north.”
“I know.”
“The call is west.”
“I know.”
“Then why are we passing Monroe Elementary?”
Maya turned at the next light.
Ortega looked at her.
She kept her eyes on traffic.
He said, “What happened on the Ellis case?”
The name struck cleanly.
Maya's hands tightened on the wheel.
“Don't.”
“I'm not criticizing you.”
“Then don't.”
Two years earlier, Maya had responded to an apartment where a woman named Denise Ellis said her husband shoved her into a kitchen cabinet.
Denise later recanted.
Three months after that, officers returned.
Her husband had broken her jaw.
Maya visited Denise in the hospital while off duty.
That had been the mistake.
Not because policy forbade compassion.
Because Maya had wanted Denise to make the decision Maya needed her to make.
Leave him.
Testify.
Move.
Do something that would make Maya's first call mean something.
Denise told her, gently, “You're making me feel like I'm failing you too.”
Maya had never forgotten it.
Denise eventually left on her own timeline.
She moved to Arizona.
She sent Maya a Christmas card once.
Maya kept it inside a kitchen drawer and almost never looked at it.
Ortega said, “You learned something from that.”
“Apparently not enough.”
“You're not doing the same thing.”
“I'm driving past a nine-year-old's school.”
“You're also noticing you're doing it.”
Maya turned onto the westbound road.
They drove in silence.
At the next red light, Ortega said, “Caring isn't misconduct.”
“No.”
“Believing you're the only person who can keep somebody safe can become a problem.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
“Are you done?”
“Yes.”
He waited.
“Mostly.”
Maya looked at him.
He smiled.
She hated him a little.
That helped.
She stopped driving past Monroe Elementary.
Rachel noticed Maya pulling back.
At first she thought she had done something wrong.
Then she became angry at herself for thinking that.
She had spent too long measuring other people's distance as a verdict.
She texted Maya once anyway.
Ethan wants to know whether three dollars of coffee becomes four dollars with inflation.
Maya replied:
Tell him police debt collection has no statute of limitations.
Rachel showed Ethan.
He frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“She wants four dollars.”
“That's robbery.”
“Don't say that to a cop.”
“I can say it to Maya.”
Rachel almost corrected him.
Then did not.
The hearing was scheduled for a Thursday in April.
On Wednesday evening, Grant disappeared.
His employer reported he had not shown up for work.
His attorney could not reach him.
His GPS monitor, imposed after the alleged indirect contact investigation, stopped transmitting shortly after six.
Police located the device in a drainage ditch twelve miles from town.
Rachel learned about it at 7:22 p.m.
Nina called.
Maya heard over dispatch five minutes later.
Grant Reed, bond violation, current location unknown.
Maya pulled to the curb.
Her first instinct was to call Rachel.
She did not.
She notified her supervisor that she had been an original responding officer and asked whether units had been assigned to Rachel's house and Ethan's school.
They had.
She asked whether Rachel had been contacted.
She had.
Then Maya sat in her SUV and forced herself to remain where she was until Ortega assigned her a task.
It was one of the hardest professional choices she had made all year.
At the Carter house, Rachel packed.
Again.
The blue backpack was already beside the front door.
Ethan had maintained it since the motel.
Snacks.
Socks.
Inhaler.
Thirty-one dollars now.
Toothbrush.
Rachel found it while checking.
“You added one.”
“I learned.”
She almost smiled.
A patrol officer waited outside.
Laura was driving down.
The plan was to move Rachel and Ethan to a confidential hotel for the night.
Rachel carried a duffel bag toward the door, then stopped.
“No.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What?”
She set the bag down.
“I am so tired of leaving this house.”
The officer outside could see her through the window but could not hear.
Ethan tightened his backpack straps.
“Do we have to?”
Rachel looked around the living room.
Grant had painted one wall blue because she once said the beige made the room look like oatmeal.
He had installed the shelves beside the television.
His work existed everywhere.
His absence existed there too.
“Yes,” she said.
Ethan's shoulders fell.
Rachel touched his head.
“We still go.”
“Because he's gone?”
“Because we don't know where he is.”
“Could he come here?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you say no?”
Rachel picked up the duffel again.
“Because I didn't want reality to be reality for about five seconds.”
He considered that.
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
They left.
Grant did not come to the house.
He did not go to Rachel's workplace.
He did not approach the school.
For eleven hours, nobody knew where he was.
At 6:14 the next morning, Rachel's phone received a text from an unknown number.
I just want my tools. Tell the cops to stop acting like I'm hunting you.
She showed it to the officer stationed outside the hotel room.
The number belonged to a prepaid phone purchased the previous afternoon.
The message was forwarded to investigators.
At 6:22 another arrived.
Ethan knows I would never hurt him.
Rachel stared at that sentence.
At 6:23:
Ask him about the bike.
Rachel put the phone face down.
Ethan was asleep in the other bed.
She walked into the bathroom and vomited.
At 6:41, Grant sent a photograph.
It showed the Carter house.
Taken from across the street.
The timestamp metadata had been stripped.
Police vehicles were visible near the curb.
May you like
The image could have been current or old.
Rachel knew it was current because the trash bins were out.
