Chapter 11 - The Offer
The video was only forty-three seconds long.
It was enough.
Caroline had apparently started recording with the phone concealed near the bookshelf.
Emily stood close to her.
Mercer remained by the door.
“You have a daughter,” he said.
“Think carefully.”
Caroline’s voice shook.
“I want to leave.”
“Then leave,” Emily said.
“Without anything that belongs to us.”
“The recordings don’t belong to you.”
Emily stepped forward.
“Nobody will believe you over me.”
The screen tilted.
A hand covered the lens.
Then darkness.
For three years, that phone had sat behind my mudroom wall.
Three years while I kissed Emily goodbye in front of it.
Ortiz’s team moved quickly.
The old recordings could be compared with the recovered system.
Messages could be matched.
Payments could be traced.
The story Mercer was selling began to collapse.
That was when he called me himself.
Not from a blocked number.
From the same number I’d saved after a business lunch.
“Daniel,” he said.
“This has gotten out of hand.”
Ortiz was across the desk.
She gestured for me to keep him talking.
“Where is Caroline?”
“Somewhere quiet.”
“Let her go.”
“I’d like to.”
“Then do it.”
“There are complications.”
I gripped the phone.
“She’s a mother.
She has a little girl waiting for her.”
A pause.
“I’m aware.”
The calmness of it made my hands shake.
“What do you want?”
“The original material.
The old phone.
Everything Caroline kept.”
“The police have it.”
“Then convince them it’s unrelated.”
“You think I can just ask?”
“I think you understand consequences.”
Ortiz wrote on a pad.
Proof of life.
I read it.
“Let me hear Caroline.”
A rustle.
Then her voice.
“Daniel?”
“Lucy’s with Ruth.
She’s safe.”
A broken breath.
“Good.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m cold.”
Something metallic rattled in the background.
Mercer came back.
“You have until six.”
The call ended.
Ortiz checked the time.
4:17.
I stared at the phone.
“He’s going to move her again.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“We’re working every lead.”
Ruth called ten minutes later.
Lucy wanted to know whether I had found her mom.
I couldn’t tell her yes.
So I said, “We’re still looking.”
Lucy was quiet.
Then she asked, “Did you check the place with the bird?”
“What bird?”
May you like
“The big red bird on the truck.
The man with the keys said Mommy was going there.”
