Chapter 3
I did not sleep that night.
Officer Grant took the photograph and searched the house.
There were no broken windows.
No damaged locks.
Whoever had entered knew how to get inside.
Only three people had keys.
Ryan.
Diane.
And me.
At six the next morning, I packed clothes, Lily’s medicine, and every important document I could find.
Mom wanted us to stay at her home.
“No,” I said. “They know where you live.”
Officer Grant arranged a temporary protective order, but a piece of paper did not feel like protection anymore.
I took Lily and Mom to a small hotel across town.
Lily knew something was wrong.
“Is Daddy mad at us?” she asked.
I knelt in front of her.
“Daddy made some bad choices. None of this is your fault.”
“Grandma Diane said you were going away.”
Mom and I exchanged a look.
“When did she say that?”
“Yesterday. She said I would live with her and Daddy soon.”
My hands began to shake.
Lily reached into her backpack.
“She gave me this.”
It was a second phone.
A tiny tracking symbol flashed at the top of the screen.
I turned it off immediately.
Before I could call the police, someone knocked on the hotel door.
“Emma?” a woman called. “My name is Claire.”
I looked through the peephole.
The blonde woman from the school stood in the hallway.
She no longer wore the red coat.
Her hands were raised.
“I know you think I’m helping Ryan,” she said. “I’m not. Please let me explain.”
I called Officer Grant and left the chain on the door.
Claire spoke through the opening.
She had not gone to the school to take Lily.
She had gone there because Ryan sent her a message before his arrest.
He told her Diane planned to remove Lily before the custody documents could be investigated.
“The letter had your forged signature,” Claire said. “I thought showing it would convince the school there was an immediate threat. I made a terrible decision.”
“Why did you run?”
“Because Diane called me. She said if I spoke to police, she would finish what she started years ago.”
Mom stepped closer.
“What happened to your father?”
Claire’s face crumpled.
“Twelve years ago, my father discovered Diane was stealing from his construction company. He planned to report her.”
The night before he met with an investigator, his car crashed.
Police called it an accident.
Claire did not believe them.
She had found brake fluid on the garage floor that morning.
Ryan had been nineteen.
Diane convinced him that speaking up would destroy the family.
Claire refused to stay silent, so Diane told everyone she was unstable.
Then she had Claire committed for six months using false medical statements.
The story made my stomach turn.
It was the same plan they had prepared for me.
Claire pulled a flash drive from her pocket.
“I have copies of Diane’s old financial records. Ryan helped me get them from the storage unit last week.”
“So Ryan knew?”
“He knew about the fraud. He didn’t know Diane had already prepared the custody petition.”
I wanted to believe her.
But trust had become dangerous.
“Why was Ryan helping Diane take Lily’s trust?”
Claire hesitated.
“Because he owes money.”
“How much?”
“Almost nine hundred thousand dollars.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“To whom?”
Before Claire could answer, her phone rang.
She stared at the screen.
“It’s Diane.”
Officer Grant arrived moments later and instructed Claire to answer on speaker.
Diane’s voice was cold.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Claire said.
“The flash drive. Bring it to Unit 214 by noon.”
“And if I don’t?”
Diane laughed.
“Then Emma will learn how easily a mother can lose a child.”
The call ended.
Officer Grant looked at the flash drive.
“We’ll need to examine this.”
Then the hotel fire alarm suddenly began screaming.
May you like
Smoke rolled beneath the door.
Someone had set a fire in the hallway.
