Chapter 3
The police found the rest before dawn.
A cot in the dry storage room.
Zip ties.
Burner phones.
Lucy’s purse hidden behind flour sacks.
Seven months of unopened letters to Jack.
A small notebook where Lucy had scratched dates into cardboard.
Diane kept saying she wanted a lawyer.
Good.
She needed one.
Paramedics wrapped Lucy in heated blankets and carried her out.
Jack refused to leave her side.
I followed them to the hospital in my truck, numb hands gripping the wheel.
At the hospital, doctors treated dehydration, frostbite risk, malnutrition, and old injuries.
Old injuries.
Those words made me sick.
A detective named Harris took my statement.
I told him everything.
Lucy disappearing.
Diane saying Lucy had relapsed into depression.
The text messages from Lucy’s number telling me not to look for her.
The custody papers Diane helped me file.
The engagement.
Jack’s nightmares.
The accidental call.
Detective Harris asked, “Who benefited from Lucy being gone?”
I closed my eyes.
“Diane.”
“And financially?”
My eyes opened.
“What?”
He looked at me carefully.
“Did Lucy have assets? Insurance? Custody-linked accounts?”
Lucy’s parents had left her a small property and money for Jack.
I had forgotten because Diane told me Lucy sold everything before leaving.
“She had a trust for Jack,” I said slowly.
Harris wrote it down.
My stomach turned.
Diane had not only wanted me.
She had wanted Jack.
And everything tied to him.
In the hospital room, Lucy woke as the sun rose.
Jack was asleep in the chair beside her bed.
She looked at me.
I stood.
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes filled.
“Did you believe I abandoned him?”
The question was a knife.
“Yes,” I whispered.
May you like
She turned her face away.
I deserved that.
