Chapter 6 - MY FATHER'S DEATH WAS STILL AN ACCIDENT
I expected Harlan to tell me my father was murdered.
He didn’t.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“What?”
“Turn every ugly fact into a conspiracy.”
I stared at him.
“My father found financial records and then died.”
“Yes.”
“In a warehouse.”
“Yes.”
“And Thomas Kerr was there.”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“So the investigation found a structural collapse caused by overloaded shelving.”
I hated the answer because it was ordinary.
“Could it have been staged?”
“Maybe anything could be staged. There’s no evidence.”
Victor added:
“Owen’s death was reviewed twice. No tampering. No assault.”
I looked at my father’s photograph.
Truth did not become less painful because nobody murdered him.
He still died.
Mom still lied.
I still grew up believing he chose to leave.
“Why did she tell me he disappeared?”
Rachel answered.
“Because your mother was angry.”
At Owen.
Why?
He had become obsessed with the payment ledger.
Worked late.
Followed foundation vendors.
Promised Julia he would stop.
Didn’t.
The night he died, they had fought.
His last words to her were:
“If I don’t finish this, somebody else’s kid gets hurt.”
Three years later, Elsie disappeared.
Mom must have heard those words every night afterward.
Then Harlan’s father gave Julia money after Owen died.
Not hush money.
Worker compensation outside formal channels.
Julia refused most of it.
Accepted enough to move.
She hated the Voss family afterward.
Still, when she saw Elsie being led away, she intervened.
People are complicated.
Then police found DNA from the Brightwell coffee cup.
Not Thomas Kerr.
Female.
Match to a former employee:
Maya Warren.
I looked at Harlan.
“Warren?”
Victor nodded.
“Elsie’s aunt.”
Beth Warren’s younger sister.
She vanished from Detroit two years after Elsie disappeared.
No charges.
No public suspicion.
Just gone.
“Why would she return?”
Nobody knew.
Then Belle woke from a nap and asked for me.
When I entered, she said:
“The butterfly lady had yellow hair.”
Maya Warren had dark hair in old photographs.
Not her.
“Anything else?”
Belle thought.
“She cried.”
“What?”
“When the man took me.”
The butterfly lady had not looked happy.
She whispered something to Belle before she ran.
“What?”
Belle frowned.
“Something like…”
She closed her eyes.
“Find Rue.”
My blood went cold.
“She told you my name?”
Belle nodded.
“‘If you get away, find Rue Callaway.’”
I sat back.
This person knew me.
Expected me near the theater.
Then Harlan entered.
“What is it?”
I looked at him.
“This wasn’t random.”
“No.”
“I was scheduled to work the Meridian that night.”
“Yes.”
“My manager called me in two hours early.”
Harlan went still.
“Who changed your shift?”
I checked my messages.
Supervisor:
Nina Wells.
But when we called Nina, she swore she had not sent it.
Her scheduling account had been accessed remotely.
Someone had deliberately placed me near Belle.
May you like
The person who lured Belle away had also arranged for me to find her.
And suddenly I understood the rescue itself might have been part of the plan.
