Chapter 7 - The Storage Unit
Police traced Natalie’s call to an industrial area near the river.
By the time officers arrived, she was gone.
They found her phone smashed beside a dumpster.
I wanted to leave the hospital and search for her myself.
Officer Grant stopped me.
“You have your daughter to think about.”
He was right.
I hated that he was right.
Mia woke after sunset.
She asked for pancakes.
That almost broke me.
Children can walk through terror and still want pancakes.
Jackson went downstairs to get food.
While he was gone, Mia sat on the hospital bed brushing Rosie’s damaged hair with her fingers.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Grandma was crying.”
“When?”
“At her house.”
“Why?”
“She said the baby made everything bad again.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did that mean?”
Mia shrugged.
Then she said, “Aunt Cass had a red box.”
“What red box?”
“She said, ‘We gotta burn it.’”
I kept my voice calm.
“Where was the box?”
“In Grandma’s car.”
Jackson returned.
I told him.
He immediately called Grant.
The Buick had been impounded.
Police searched it.
No red box.
But they found a receipt in Lorraine’s purse.
Self-storage facility.
Unit 214.
Paid in cash.
The police obtained a warrant before midnight.
Grant called me at 12:46 AM.
“We found the red box.”
I held the phone so tightly my fingers hurt.
“What’s inside?”
“Documents. Photographs. Old medical records.”
“Whose?”
“Your father’s.”
I sat down.
Jackson stood beside me.
Grant continued.
“And there’s a VHS tape labeled October 14.”
Jackson closed his eyes.
I stared at him.
“The date Natalie mentioned.”
He nodded.
“What is on that tape?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying again.”
“I never saw a tape.”
“But you know what happened that day.”
He sat across from me.
“Daniel came to my apartment.”
“Before we were married?”
“Yes.”
“He said Lorraine was dangerous.”
I laughed bitterly.
“And you married me anyway without mentioning that?”
“I thought he was jealous.”
“Was he?”
“Yes. But he also had evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“He claimed your father had been framed.”
My throat tightened.
“For what?”
“The prescription records.”
I felt like someone had punched me.
Jackson continued.
“Daniel said Mom had used your father’s login to alter patient files.”
“Why?”
“Because one patient had died after receiving the wrong medication.”
My voice disappeared.
“Whose patient?”
Jackson looked straight at me.
“Mom’s.”
Lorraine had once worked as a clinic administrator.
My father had been one of the doctors there.
I remembered the newspaper headline.
I remembered people whispering at church.
I remembered Dad sitting at our kitchen table saying, “Emily, I did not do this.”
I hadn’t believed him enough.
Tears filled my eyes.
“Why would Daniel know?”
“He was working IT security for the clinic’s insurance company.”
Everything clicked.
“He found the access logs.”
Jackson nodded.
“And then he died.”
Silence filled the room.
I slowly looked at him.
“You said it was a car accident.”
“It was.”
“But?”
May you like
Jackson swallowed.
“Daniel told me the night before he died that if anything happened to him, it wouldn’t be an accident.”
