Chapter 8
Police found Amanda before midnight.
She was at the motel Monica described.
She didn’t have Lily.
That was all I cared about.
She had cash.
Two phones.
Lily’s passport.
And a second passport with Amanda’s photograph and the name Anna Mitchell.
The fake passport turned the situation into something much bigger.
Amanda was arrested.
Dad didn’t celebrate.
Neither did I.
Lily cried.
She sat on the hotel bed staring at the news report.
They showed Amanda’s old social-media photograph instead of an arrest picture.
She looked beautiful in it.
Smiling.
Perfect hair.
The same picture she used when she posted birthday messages about loving our family.
“Will she go to jail forever?” Lily asked.
Dad turned off the television.
“I don’t know.”
“Can I see her?”
“Not right now.”
“She’ll be scared.”
Dad sat beside her.
“I know.”
Lily looked at me.
I wanted to say Amanda deserved to be scared.
I didn’t.
The next day, Dad had to go to the courthouse.
Amanda’s lawyer argued she had not intended to flee with Lily.
He said the passports were for a planned vacation.
He said the fake passport belonged to someone else.
That argument lasted less than a day.
Fingerprints were found on it.
Amanda’s.
The photograph was hers.
And one of her phones contained searches.
Countries without easy extradition.
How to travel with child after custody dispute.
Can airport stop parent traveling with adopted child.
How to change child surname abroad.
Dad didn’t let us hear those details.
Rachel did not tell me until years later.
At seven, all I knew was that Amanda had tried to disappear.
Then something strange happened.
I became angry.
Not scared.
Angry.
I yelled at Dad because he cut my sandwich wrong.
I threw a toy when Lily touched it.
I kicked my bedroom door.
One night I screamed, “I hate this house!”
Dad stood in the hallway.
He didn’t yell back.
That made me angrier.
“Say something!”
“I’m listening.”
“I hate you too!”
My chest hurt as soon as the words came out.
Dad nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
“I mean it!”
“I know you mean it right now.”
“Why aren’t you mad?”
“Because you’re allowed to be angry.”
That broke something open.
I started crying.
“You left me!”
Dad’s face changed.
“I went on trips.”
“You left.”
“I always came back.”
“But you left me with her!”
There it was.
The truth I hadn’t been able to say.
Dad sat on the floor.
I stood across the room with my fists clenched.
“You knew I didn’t like when you traveled.”
“I did.”
“And you still went.”
“Yes.”
“You believed her.”
His eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“She said I was dramatic.”
“I believed that sometimes.”
I started crying harder.
“She said if I told you, you’d send me away.”
Dad covered his mouth.
“She said you liked Lily more because she wasn’t sad all the time.”
He shook his head.
“She lied.”
“But you didn’t know.”
“No.”
“That means she could make you believe anything.”
Dad didn’t defend himself.
That mattered.
He said, “I failed you.”
The words stunned me.
Adults almost never said that.
Especially parents.
Dad continued.
“I loved you every second. But love should have made me pay better attention.”
I sank onto the carpet.
He didn’t come closer until I held out my arms.
Then he crawled across the floor and hugged me.
“I’m sorry.”
I cried into his shirt.
“I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
“I’m not traveling.”
“Ever?”
“I can’t promise ever.”
I pulled away.
He quickly added, “But I can promise I will never leave you with someone you’re afraid of again.”
That was different.
Real promises have limits.
I began seeing a therapist named Dr. Harris.
So did Lily.
Sometimes separately.
Sometimes together.
Dr. Harris had a jar full of little plastic animals.
He asked me to choose one that felt like me.
I picked a turtle.
“Why?”
“It has armor.”
He nodded.
“What would make the turtle come out?”
I looked at Dad through the office window.
He waited outside every appointment.
“Knowing nothing bad will happen.”
Dr. Harris said, “Can anybody know that for sure?”
I shook my head.
“Then maybe safety is knowing what happens if something bad does happen.”
I thought about the black device.
The police.
Dad coming home.
Lily giving me chicken.
Maybe safety wasn’t a world where nobody could hurt me.
Maybe it was a world where I didn’t have to face it alone.
Two weeks after Amanda’s arrest, Rachel received a large envelope.
No return address.
Inside were copies of bank statements.
Photographs.
Emails.
And a handwritten letter.
The writer claimed Amanda had done something similar before.
Before Dad.
Before Ryan.
Before Lily.
Rachel read the first page twice.
Then she called Officer Collins.
The woman who wrote the letter said her name was Nicole Grant.
She claimed she had once been Amanda’s best friend.
And according to Nicole, Amanda had admitted something years earlier.
Something about Ryan’s fatal car accident.
When Rachel told Dad, he went silent.
“Admitted what?”
Rachel hesitated.
“She said she knew Ryan was too drunk to drive.”
Dad frowned.
“That’s awful, but not criminal.”
Rachel shook her head.
“That isn’t the part that worries me.”
Dad’s face tightened.
“What part?”
Rachel looked toward Lily.
Then lowered her voice.
“Nicole says Amanda hid his car keys earlier that night.”
Dad stared at her.
Rachel continued.
May you like
“Then gave them back after they had a fight.”
The investigation that had started with a cup of noodles was about to open a door nobody expected.
