Chapter 11 - THE AIRFIELD
Richard did as Ortiz asked. He remained at the hotel with Emily, Elaine, and the boys while officers went to the airfield.
Waiting was harder than he expected. He wanted to move, to make calls, to force an answer. Instead he sat on the carpet and helped Ethan build a crooked tower from paper cups.
At the airfield, officers found the charter plane being prepared for departure. Adrian was in the terminal with two suitcases and a folder of documents. He tried to leave through a side door when he saw the patrol cars.
He did not get far.
Ortiz called Richard after Adrian was in custody.
“The boys’ passport copies were in his bag,” she said. “We also found a folder with the travel forms and information about the trust.”
Richard exhaled slowly. “Thank you.”
“There’s something else. Adrian had a signed contract from the school in Switzerland. It lists Victoria as the boys’ authorized guardian.”
Elaine closed her eyes. “She had no authority to sign that.”
“We know.”
Ortiz said the forged documents and the recordings would be reviewed with the prosecutor. Richard gave her Priya’s contact information for the account logs.
After the call, Ethan knocked over the paper-cup tower. Noah laughed for the first time in two days. Liam joined him, and soon all three boys were rebuilding it.
Emily watched from the couch.
Richard sat beside her. “They’re safe.”
“For now,” she said gently. “They need to feel safe too. That takes longer.”
He looked at his sons. “How do I start?”
“Show up tomorrow. Then the day after that.”
He nodded.
That afternoon, Elaine received a call from the prosecutor’s office. Victoria had asked to speak. She claimed Adrian had planned everything and said she could prove she never meant to take the boys out of the country.
“She signed the school contract,” Richard said.
“She says he tricked her.”
Emily thought of Victoria kneeling by the clinic chair, smiling as Noah hid behind her. “She’ll say whatever gets her out of this.”
Elaine agreed to pass the information to Ortiz.
An hour later, Ortiz requested another interview with Richard. Investigators had opened a file found among Adrian’s papers.
Inside was a payment record bearing Richard’s name.
It showed that five years earlier, someone using a Hawthorne account had paid Adrian Lane nearly half a million dollars.
May you like
Richard stared at the date.
Grace had been alive.
