Chapter 6 - Her Mother’s Voice
Ortiz signaled for me to answer.
I put the phone on speaker.
For two seconds, all we heard was breathing.
Then a woman said, “Daniel?”
I recognized her.
Even after three years.
“Caroline.”
A scrape.
A muffled sound.
“Is Lucy with you?”
“She’s safe.”
Caroline started crying.
One sharp breath.
Then she swallowed it.
“Listen carefully.
Don’t let Emily—”
The line went quiet.
“Caroline?”
A man spoke.
“Your family has caused enough trouble.”
Ortiz was already writing.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“You have something that doesn’t belong to you.”
“The drive?”
“The key.”
I looked at the evidence envelope on the table.
“What do you want?”
“Stop giving things to the police.”
“Let me talk to Caroline.”
“You just did.”
Then he hung up.
I stood so quickly my chair struck the wall.
Ortiz stayed seated.
“Daniel.
Look at me.”
“He has her.”
“Yes.”
“He knows about the key.”
“Yes.
And we need to understand how.”
She called another investigator into the room.
The next few minutes moved fast.
Questions.
Times.
Who had seen Lucy hand over the key.
Who had been close enough to hear.
Emily had been in the house.
So had several officers.
Ortiz didn’t guess.
She began checking.
An hour later, Ruth Webb arrived wearing a grocery-store uniform beneath her coat.
She was Caroline’s older sister.
The moment she saw Lucy through the interview-room window, she pressed both hands to her mouth.
Lucy ran to her.
“Aunt Ruth!”
Ruth dropped to her knees and held her.
I looked away.
When Ruth finally sat across from me, her eyes were dry and furious.
“She tried to tell you.”
“I know.”
“No.
You know now.”
I took that.
I deserved it.
Ruth explained that Caroline had fled after Danner threatened to accuse her of theft and make trouble for her family.
She kept copies.
She tried to reach me through my office.
Emily intercepted one message.
Another reached my chief of staff, who forwarded it to my wife as a household matter.
Then Caroline received photographs of Lucy leaving preschool.
“She got scared,” Ruth said.
“She thought staying quiet would keep her daughter safe.”
“What changed?”
Ruth took a folded envelope from her purse.
“Last week, somebody put this on my windshield.”
Inside was a photograph of Lucy at a playground.
On the back, in block letters:
WE KNOW WHERE YOU WENT.
Ruth stared at me.
May you like
“Your wife wasn’t waiting for Caroline to come back.”
“She was hunting her.”
