Chapter 9
Richard Bellamy was not a child two years after Samuel disappeared.
That was the first problem.
He would have been nearly thirty.
So the boy in the photograph could not be him.
Unless the writing meant something else.
Detective Ortiz arrived at our house before sunrise.
She examined the photograph.
Dad paced.
I sat at the dining table drinking coffee Mom insisted was mostly milk.
Ortiz said, “The writing may refer to someone else.”
Dad answered, “It says Richard Bellamy.”
“Could be identifying the photographer.”
“Could be identifying a location.”
“Could be forged.”
I said, “Read exactly what it says.”
Dad did.
“‘Daniel deserves to know what his family did. Richard Bellamy.’”
I frowned.
“No punctuation?”
“Just the words.”
“So we’re assuming Richard Bellamy is the boy.”
Ortiz said, “Correct.”
I smiled.
“Blind girl saves the investigation.”
Dad muttered, “Please don’t put that on a shirt.”
Mom said, “I would buy that shirt.”
Ortiz almost laughed.
Then she became serious again.
“We need the photograph authenticated.”
“Do it,” Dad said.
Her phone rang.
She walked away to answer.
Mom sat beside me.
“You need sleep.”
“So do you.”
“I’m your mother. I stopped sleeping in 2010.”
“That explains a lot.”
She bumped my shoulder.
Then Dad’s phone rang.
He answered.
His voice changed immediately.
“What?”
Mom and I looked up.
“When?”
Silence.
“Is she hurt?”
My stomach twisted.
Dad ended the call.
“Madison is missing.”
I stood.
“What?”
“She disappeared from her mother’s house sometime after midnight.”
Mom said, “How?”
“Bedroom window.”
I thought of the terrified girl in the conference room.
“She ran?”
“Maybe.”
“No.”
Dad looked toward me.
“Why no?”
“Because she was scared of her father.”
“She might be scared of the police too.”
“She told the truth after Richard tried to stop her.”
Mom said, “Hannah may be right.”
Detective Ortiz returned.
Dad told her.
Her reaction told me she hadn’t known.
She immediately started making calls.
I grabbed my phone.
Ethan had sent three messages overnight.
Nothing about Madison.
I called him.
He answered sleepily.
“Hannah?”
“Have you heard from Madison?”
Pause.
“What?”
“She’s missing.”
He sat up.
I heard bedsheets.
“No.”
“Think.”
“I haven’t talked to her since Friday.”
“Did she ever tell you where she goes when she wants to be alone?”
“Hannah, Madison and I aren’t friends.”
“You recorded her. You listened to things.”
He went quiet.
Then said, “There is one place.”
I stood.
“Where?”
“The old boathouse.”
Dad turned toward me.
“What boathouse?”
Ethan continued through the phone.
“Westbrook owns property by the Charles. Crew team used it before they built the new athletic center.”
“Why would Madison go there?”
“She used to meet Chloe there.”
I told Ortiz.
Within minutes police were checking.
Forty minutes later, Ortiz received confirmation.
They found Madison’s backpack inside.
Not Madison.
But there was blood on the floor.
Dad immediately said, “Hannah stays here.”
I didn’t argue.
That surprised him.
“This is different.”
“Yes.”
A missing girl was not a puzzle I needed to chase.
It was real.
Madison had hurt me.
Terrified me.
Humiliated me.
But I did not want her hurt.
I called Chloe.
She answered on the third try.
“Why are you calling me?”
“Madison is missing.”
Silence.
Then a small voice.
“What?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“She went to the boathouse.”
Chloe started crying.
“Oh my God.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Chloe.”
“She called me.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she found something.”
My pulse jumped.
“What?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Chloe sniffed.
“She said her dad had hidden a second phone in his office.”
Dad moved closer.
I put the call on speaker.
Chloe continued.
“She knew the police were searching the house. She took it before they arrived.”
Ortiz had not yet left.
She stepped toward me.
“What was on the phone?”
Chloe gasped.
“Who is that?”
“Detective Ortiz. Answer.”
“I don’t know! Madison said there were messages.”
“With whom?”
“She kept saying the name Sam.”
Every adult in the room froze.
I whispered, “Samuel.”
Chloe said, “I don’t know.”
Ortiz leaned toward the phone.
“Did Madison say where the phone is now?”
“No.”
“Why did she go to the boathouse?”
“She said she was meeting someone.”
“Who?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
I felt cold all over.
“Did she sound scared?”
“Yes.”
Pause.
“Actually…”
“What?”
“She sounded angry.”
That sounded more like Madison.
“What did she say before hanging up?”
Chloe hesitated.
Then repeated it.
“She said, ‘If he thinks he can destroy my family and disappear again, he picked the wrong girl.’”
Dad whispered, “Jesus.”
Police searched the river.
Dogs searched the surrounding area.
By noon, the blood had been tested.
It was Madison’s.
Not enough to prove a fatal injury.
But enough to terrify everyone.
Richard Bellamy was questioned in custody.
He refused to speak without his attorney.
Elias Reed agreed to an interview.
He denied knowing anything about Madison’s disappearance.
Then he asked one question.
“Did she find the phone?”
Ortiz demanded to know how he knew.
He laughed.
“Because Richard keeps every mistake.”
By late afternoon, investigators had reconstructed part of the hidden phone’s cloud backup.
Thousands of messages.
Payments.
Threats.
Photos.
And one contact saved under the name SAM.
Dad stood behind Ortiz as she reviewed the messages.
I sat at the table with my screen reader connected to a copied transcript.
The messages went back six years.
SAM: The school rollout is too visible.
RICHARD: That is why we control the audit.
SAM: Whitmore Foundation cannot inspect.
RICHARD: Daniel won’t care.
SAM: He will if the girl comes.
My hands went cold.
I continued.
RICHARD: She won’t.
SAM: Make sure.
Then messages from three weeks ago.
The day before I started Westbrook.
RICHARD: She enrolled.
SAM: Then remove her.
RICHARD: She is sixteen.
SAM: I did not say kill her.
My stomach turned.
Another message.
SAM: Make Westbrook unbearable. Her father will pull her.
Richard had passed the instruction to Madison.
My bullying had come from a stranger called Sam.
Possibly Samuel Whitmore.
Dad’s dead uncle.
I kept reading.
Then I found a newer message.
Two nights before Grandpa was attacked.
RICHARD: Arthur is asking questions.
SAM: He always does when it is too late.
RICHARD: Handle him.
SAM: No.
RICHARD: You owe me.
SAM: I owe you nothing.
Then another.
SAM: If you touch Arthur, our arrangement is over.
I looked up.
“Samuel didn’t order the attack.”
Ortiz said, “We don’t know that SAM is Samuel.”
“But whoever Sam is told Richard not to hurt Grandpa.”
Dad said, “Then Richard may have ordered someone else.”
Ortiz’s phone buzzed.
She read something.
“What?”
Her voice became sharp.
“We found Madison.”
I stood.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Air rushed from my lungs.
“Where?”
“Massachusetts General.”
“What happened?”
“A rideshare driver found her near a gas station in Cambridge.”
“Why didn’t she call police?”
“She says her phone was taken.”
“Who hurt her?”
Ortiz stared toward Dad.
“She claims Samuel Whitmore did.”
We drove to the hospital.
Madison had six stitches above her eyebrow.
Her mother sat beside her.
When I entered, Madison started crying.
“Hannah.”
I stopped near the bed.
“Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
“You said Samuel hurt you.”
She sniffed.
“I met him at the boathouse.”
“How did you know it was him?”
“He told me.”
Dad asked, “What did he look like?”
Madison described a man in his late fifties.
Tall.
Gray hair.
Scar across his chin.
Dad went silent.
Mom asked, “Daniel?”
“My uncle had a scar on his chin.”
Madison continued.
“He wanted my father’s phone.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I wanted answers.”
I almost laughed.
Of course she did.
Madison had spent years believing money made her untouchable.
Now her own father had used her as a pawn.
She sounded sixteen for the first time.
“What happened?”
“We argued. Then someone came through the back door.”
“Samuel?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“I couldn’t see his face.”
Her voice shook.
“He hit me.”
“Where was Samuel?”
“He fought him.”
Dad stepped closer.
“Samuel protected you?”
“Yes.”
“What happened next?”
“I passed out.”
“And the phone?”
“Gone.”
Ortiz asked, “Do you know who took it?”
“No.”
Madison swallowed.
“But before I blacked out, I heard Samuel say something.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘Tell Daniel I never forgave Arthur.’”
Dad closed his eyes.
Then Madison added, “And he said Hannah knows where to find me.”
Everyone turned toward me.
I felt my stomach drop.
“I don’t.”
Madison whispered, “He said you would.”
“How?”
“He said, ‘Ask her where blind people go to see the light.’”
I stood motionless.
It sounded ridiculous.
Then I remembered the lighthouse.
The phrase.
The lighthouse is safer in darkness.
Room 214.
Navigation technology.
Blind people.
Light.
I whispered, “The lighthouse.”
Dad said, “Cape Cod?”
“No.”
I thought harder.
Grandpa had funded an accessibility center years ago.
I remembered visiting as a child.
A rehabilitation facility in Boston where newly blind patients learned independent living.
Its logo had been a lighthouse.
I turned toward Dad.
“The Beacon Center.”
He understood instantly.
Fifteen minutes later, police were heading there.
Dad and I followed.
The Beacon Center had been closed for renovations for six months.
The building was dark.
Officers entered first.
Then Ortiz came back outside.
Her voice was tense.
“There’s someone inside.”
Dad asked, “Samuel?”
“We don’t know.”
I heard a door opening behind her.
Footsteps came down the ramp.
Slow.
Deliberate.
A man stopped twenty feet from us.
Dad stopped breathing.
The stranger said one word.
May you like
“Danny.”
My father whispered, “Uncle Sam?”
