Chapter 5 - THE ATTORNEY’S SECOND LIE
Claire stared at Samuel’s message for a long time.
“What did you do with Nora?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“That answer isn’t enough anymore.”
“I drove Lily away. That is all.”
“Samuel believes otherwise.”
“He might believe I abandoned Nora.”
“Did you?”
Claire’s eyes filled with a mixture of anger and shame.
“I followed Evelyn’s instructions.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“And left a woman inside an apartment with armed criminals.”
“I was twenty-seven years old. I had never held a gun. Samuel pushed a screaming child into my arms and told me to drive.”
“Then why remain silent for five years?”
“Because everyone who spoke became a target.”
Alvarez placed the photograph in an evidence sleeve.
“Samuel has kidnapped three people. Whatever side he was on years ago, he’s committing crimes now.”
“He may be trying to protect Lily,” Claire said.
“He threatened her mother.”
“He told Emily to ask me a question.”
“That is a threat disguised as communication.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
Alvarez signaled for the trace equipment.
I answered.
“Emily?”
Samuel’s voice was rougher than I remembered.
“You used to call me Miss Emily,” I said.
“That was a different life.”
“Are my parents alive?”
“For now.”
“Let me speak to them.”
“You’ll hear them after Claire tells the truth.”
“She says she drove Lily away and never saw Nora again.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Samuel gave a bitter laugh.
“Ask her where she went after the placement center.”
I looked at Claire.
She turned away.
“Where did you go?”
Claire said nothing.
Samuel answered for her.
“She returned to Briarwood.”
Daniel stared at Claire.
“Why?”
Her voice was barely audible.
“To find Nora.”
“Was she there?”
“No.”
“What did you find?”
“Blood. Broken furniture. Patricia Vale unconscious in the hallway. Richard and Margaret were gone.”
“And Hale?”
“Gone.”
“Samuel?”
“Gone.”
“What else?”
Claire lowered herself into a chair.
“A locked storage room in the basement.”
Samuel remained silent on the phone.
I asked, “What was inside?”
“Files. Photographs. Birth certificates. Adoption decrees. Payment records.”
“The child-placement operation,” Alvarez said.
Claire nodded.
“There were dozens of children.”
“How many?”
“At least forty.”
My incision burned as I leaned forward.
“What did you do with the records?”
“I called the federal contact Evelyn had given me.”
“Who?”
“Agent Marcus Dane.”
Samuel suddenly spoke.
“There it is.”
Claire flinched.
Samuel continued.
“Tell her what Agent Dane did.”
Claire covered her face.
“He took the evidence.”
“And?”
“He told me Nora was safe.”
“Was she?”
“I believed him.”
“You wanted to believe him,” Samuel said. “There is a difference.”
Alvarez wrote the name.
“Marcus Dane was a federal agent?”
“He showed credentials,” Claire replied.
Daniel searched on his phone.
“There was a Marcus Dane in the Portland field office. Retired three years ago.”
Samuel said, “Not retired.”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“He disappeared before the people he betrayed could find him.”
“Was he working for Hale?”
“He was working for whoever paid most.”
Alvarez leaned toward the phone.
“Mr. Reed, release your hostages and arrange to surrender.”
Samuel laughed.
“Detective Alvarez. Victor told me you would be involved.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“You’ve spoken with Hale?”
“I’ve watched him.”
“Where is he?”
“Closer than you think.”
“You claim to oppose him, yet you kidnapped innocent people.”
My anger rose.
“Innocent?”
Alvarez looked at me.
I knew what she meant, but the word still felt offensive.
My parents had hidden crimes.
Madison had emotionally tortured a six-year-old.
Yet kidnapping was not justice.
Samuel addressed me.
“Your mother lured Nora to Briarwood. Your father revealed the address. Your sister contacted Hale six weeks ago after finding one of Evelyn’s letters.”
“Madison found a letter?”
“In the lake house attic. It explained who Lily was.”
That was how they learned the truth.
“Why contact Hale?”
“Money.”
Of course.
Madison’s boutique was failing more seriously than I realized.
“She offered him Lily’s location?”
“She offered the child and the rabbit.”
My stomach turned.
Samuel continued.
“Hale told Madison to frighten Lily into revealing where the card was hidden. Your mother agreed because Hale promised to erase Richard’s debt.”
I looked at the photograph of my bound family.
“They were going to hand her over.”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to tilt.
The police officer who retrieved Lily had arrived just before sunrise.
Had I waited another hour, my daughter might have vanished.
I asked Samuel, “How do you know all this?”
“I placed listening devices in the lake house months ago.”
“Why?”
“Because Evelyn’s death was not an accident.”
The pain in my abdomen disappeared beneath a colder sensation.
“What happened to her?”
“She found Marcus Dane’s location. She planned to expose him and Hale. Margaret overheard her on the telephone.”
“My mother killed her?”
“I didn’t see who pushed Evelyn down the stairs.”
“But you believe someone did.”
“I know someone did. She left bruises on the banister and blood beneath her fingernails. The county coroner omitted both facts.”
Alvarez asked, “Do you have proof?”
“I have everything.”
“Then turn it over.”
“I tried that five years ago. Police returned half the evidence to Hale.”
“I’m not working for Hale.”
“Someone near you is.”
Alvarez looked toward the officers outside.
Samuel continued.
“The memory card contains more than Briarwood footage. Nora recorded names, accounts, and meetings. Hale will kill to retrieve it.”
“Why kidnap my family?” I asked.
“To stop them from completing the exchange.”
“What exchange?”
“Madison told Hale she still had another item from Evelyn’s attic.”
“What item?”
“A key.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know.”
Behind Samuel, my father began shouting.
His voice came faintly over the line.
“Emily! Don’t trust him! Samuel killed Nora!”
Samuel went silent.
Father continued yelling.
“I saw him shoot her!”
There was movement, then a heavy sound.
The line disconnected.
Alvarez immediately ordered a search for the call location.
Claire sat motionless.
Daniel moved beside me.
“Do you believe your father?”
“I don’t know who to believe.”
Then Lily’s child advocate rushed into the conference room.
Her face was alarmed.
“Lily is gone.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Daniel ran toward the door.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“The officer was called away because of a disturbance. A nurse entered and said Lily needed imaging.”
“What nurse?”
“I don’t know. She had identification.”
Alvarez was already speaking into her radio.
Hospital doors were sealed.
Security footage was pulled.
The video showed a woman in medical scrubs pushing Lily in a wheelchair through a service corridor.
Lily appeared calm.
The woman had told her something that made her cooperate.
At the loading dock, they entered a white van.
The license plates had been stolen.
But before the woman closed the rear doors, she turned toward the security camera.
Claire gasped.
I recognized her from the old footage.
Patricia Vale.
May you like
Five years after helping Victor Hale enter Nora’s apartment, the disgraced social worker had returned.
And this time, she had taken my daughter.
