Chapter 13 - The House With the Lights On
Ortiz took the photograph.
Deputies checked Ruth’s security camera and spoke with the neighbors.
Grace wanted to pack immediately.
Ruth wanted to bolt every door.
Owen watched both women from the hallway.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Grace forced herself to stop moving.
“No.”
“You look like when Daddy came upstairs.”
That sentence cut through the panic.
Grace knelt in front of him.
“We got a message that worried us. Detective Ortiz is helping. The grown-ups are making a plan.”
“Do I have to hide?”
“You have to come with us for a little while.”
They moved to a hotel under an arrangement Marisol helped coordinate.
No dramatic escape.
No lights turned off on the highway.
Just two tired women, a frightened boy, and three bags packed badly.
Grace forgot socks.
Ruth forgot her medication and had to arrange a replacement.
Owen remembered the bear.
The original remained evidence, so Ruth had bought another.
It looked almost right.
He carried it anyway.
That night, Grace lay awake in the adjoining room.
She listened to every elevator bell.
At 1:18, her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered without speaking.
Adrian’s voice came through.
“You think Ruth wants this forever?”
Grace sat up.
He kept talking.
“You think she wants court dates and a disturbed child in her house?”
She signaled to Ruth through the connecting doorway.
Ruth picked up her own phone.
“Don’t talk about him like that,” Grace said.
“He’s my son.”
“Then leave him alone.”
A pause.
For the first time, Adrian sounded tired.
“You don’t understand what Nora was going to do.”
“She was leaving.”
“She was taking everything.”
Grace looked toward the bed where Owen slept.
“She was taking her child.”
“You always hated that she chose me.”
Grace nearly laughed.
Four months of grief.
A dead sister.
A frightened little boy.
And he still needed to be the man someone wanted.
“What do you want, Adrian?”
“Tell them you put the drive in the box.”
“No.”
“Say Nora made those recordings during an argument. Say she threatened you, too.”
“No.”
His breathing changed.
“You owe me.”
Grace’s voice steadied.
“I know what you paid for.”
“Then pay it back.”
“I am.”
She ended the call.
Ortiz arrived the next morning with another investigator.
They preserved the call information and took Grace’s account.
Then the detective said, “We found who delivered the photograph.”
Grace gripped the edge of the chair.
“Who?”
“Adrian’s driver.”
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“And?”
“He’s willing to tell us who gave it to him.”
