Chapter 6
Ryan replayed the recording three times.
Each time, Robert’s warning sounded more terrifying.
“The morning of the crash,” Robert continued, “Margaret was supposed to drive Ryan to school. At the last minute, she claimed she was sick and asked me to take him.”
Ryan remembered that morning.
He had been twelve.
He had forgotten a science project and begged Robert to turn the car around.
Robert took him home.
Ryan ran inside for less than a minute.
When he returned, Margaret was standing near the car.
She told him his teacher had called and school was canceled because of a water leak.
Robert drove to work alone.
Two hours later, his car crashed through a guardrail.
“I believed Margaret saved my life,” Ryan whispered.
Detective Torres stood across from him in the station’s security office.
“Robert believed she was checking whether you were still in the car.”
Ryan’s hands shook.
The recording continued.
Robert said he had confronted Margaret the night before the crash.
He told her he had found proof that Ben Cross was stealing from the Sullivan foundation.
He planned to give the evidence to federal investigators.
Margaret threatened him.
Robert secretly recorded part of their argument.
The next file contained Margaret’s voice.
“If you destroy everything I built, you’ll lose Ryan too.”
Robert replied, “Ryan is not something you own.”
“You have no idea what I’m willing to do for my son.”
“You’re not doing this for him. You’re doing it for yourself.”
A door slammed.
The recording ended.
Detective Torres placed the device into an evidence bag.
“This is enough to reopen the crash investigation.”
“But it doesn’t tell us where Lily is.”
“No. The financial records might.”
The ledgers listed dozens of properties connected to shell companies.
One was a small ranch outside Dallas.
Ben purchased it six years earlier through a Sullivan subsidiary.
Police headed there.
Ryan wanted to go with them.
The detective refused again.
“Your daughter’s kidnappers want you moving where they direct you. Stop making their job easy.”
At the hospital, my contractions finally settled.
The doctor told me I might be released the next morning if nothing changed.
I wanted to feel relieved.
But Lily was still gone.
Susan stayed with me while Jack tried to locate Claire.
Neither of them could reach her.
At midnight, Detective Torres returned with Ryan.
I searched his face.
He shook his head.
“The ranch was empty.”
I felt something inside me collapse.
“But they found this,” he said.
He showed me a drawing of four people holding hands.
Lily had written MOMMY, DADDY, ME, and BABY above them.
Under the picture she had added a sentence.
THE LADY SAYS DADDY LIED.
“What lady?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Margaret?”
“Maybe.”
Detective Torres placed a photograph on the table.
It showed tire tracks outside the ranch.
“The vehicle that left the property belongs to Claire Sullivan.”
Susan stood.
“No.”
“The registration matches.”
“Claire would never help Margaret.”
“Then her vehicle may have been stolen.”
Jack appeared in the doorway.
“It wasn’t.”
Everyone turned.
Jack looked directly at Susan.
“Claire called my office three days ago.”
Susan’s voice broke.
“You told me you hadn’t spoken to her.”
“I lied because she asked me to.”
“Why?”
“She said she wanted to negotiate.”
Susan slapped him.
The sound cracked across the room.
“What did she negotiate?”
“Her silence.”
Jack explained that Claire had discovered the stolen money and contacted him.
She demanded five million dollars in exchange for the evidence.
Susan shook her head over and over.
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“I heard her demand it myself.”
“You’re lying.”
“I have the recording.”
“Then play it.”
Jack took out his phone.
Claire’s voice filled the room.
“I want five million transferred before Friday. If you refuse, everything goes to the authorities.”
Jack replied, “Does your mother know what you’re doing?”
“No. Keep her out of it.”
The call ended.
Susan sat down as if her legs had stopped working.
“That isn’t possible.”
Detective Torres took the phone.
“Recordings can be edited.”
“It was made through my company system.”
“That doesn’t make it authentic.”
My phone rang.
Margaret was calling from county jail.
Ryan put the call on speaker.
“Where is Lily?” he demanded.
Margaret’s voice was calm.
“I told you I could bring her home.”
“You arranged this.”
“I arranged nothing. But I know who did.”
“Ben?”
“No.”
“Claire?”
Margaret laughed softly.
“Susan didn’t tell you what her sweet daughter has become?”
Susan leaned toward the phone.
“You stay away from Claire.”
“I haven’t been near her.”
“Then where is Lily?”
“Ask Jack.”
Jack grabbed the phone.
“I have nothing to do with this.”
“Still hiding behind other people, Jack?”
Detective Torres ended the call.
“She’s trying to turn everyone against each other.”
“It’s working,” Ryan said.
The detective looked at him.
“Then we stop reacting and follow evidence.”
She asked Jack for access to the company’s vehicle tracking system.
Claire’s car had stopped transmitting four hours earlier.
Its last recorded location was a parking garage owned by Sullivan Medical Group.
Police surrounded the garage.
They found the car on the lowest level.
The back seat contained Lily’s booster seat.
There was blood on the driver’s door.
Susan almost fainted when she heard.
Detective Torres went to the scene.
Ryan stayed with me.
Jack left without saying where he was going.
An hour passed.
Then two.
Shortly before dawn, the detective called.
The blood belonged to Claire.
The amount suggested an injury but not necessarily a fatal one.
A hospital badge had been found under the driver’s seat.
The badge belonged to Ben Cross.
Police now believed Ben had taken both Claire and Lily.
“But why use Claire’s voice to demand money?” I asked.
“To make her look involved,” Ryan said.
Susan lifted her head.
“Claire told me not to trust Jack.”
“Maybe Ben forced her to say it.”
“No. She used a phrase we agreed on years ago.”
“What phrase?”
“Don’t trust Jack.”
Susan explained it was a warning code.
If either of them ever said those exact words during a suspicious call, it meant the person holding the phone was not the real threat.
“It means she wanted me to focus on someone else,” Susan said.
“Who?”
“Someone she thought I already trusted.”
Every face turned toward Susan.
She went pale.
“Oh no.”
“What?” I asked.
Susan looked at the old folder on the table.
“Robert didn’t mail me Emily’s photograph.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the handwriting on the envelope wasn’t Robert’s or Margaret’s.”
She pulled out the envelope and pointed to the return markings.
The postmark came from Chicago.
Ryan’s business trip.
Someone there knew he would be away.
Someone had made certain Susan reached our house at the exact moment Margaret attacked me.
It wasn’t Ben.
Ben had tried to warn Ryan to leave the hospital.
Susan whispered the name.
“Jack.”
The door slammed shut behind us.
Jack stood inside the room.
May you like
He was no longer carrying his cane.
In his hand was a gun.
