Chapter 6
Detective Ruiz asked me to come to the station alone.
I refused.
“If this is about Ethan’s mother, I’m bringing my attorney.”
Dana came with me.
Margaret stayed at the house with Ethan and two officers stationed outside.
At the station, Ruiz led us into a small conference room.
A laptop sat in the center of the table.
“There are twelve video files,” she said.
“How old?”
“Recorded over approximately five years.”
My stomach turned.
“Five years?”
“She documented Daniel for a long time.”
Ruiz clicked the first file.
Emily appeared on screen.
I forgot how to breathe.
She was older than the woman in my memories.
Thinner.
Tired.
But it was her.
She sat in what looked like a motel room.
“Today is March 14,” she said into the camera. “Ethan is seventeen months old.”
Her voice broke me.
Dana touched my arm.
Emily continued.
“If anyone finds this, my brother Daniel has located us again.”
She described a car following her.
A man approaching her at a grocery store.
A warning left underneath her windshield wiper.
COME HOME BEFORE SOMEBODY GETS HURT.
The next video was recorded eight months later.
Another town.
Another cheap room.
Emily said Daniel had frozen an account she believed he didn’t know about.
He had contacted Ethan’s daycare.
He had sent photographs of Michael’s diner.
My diner.
I leaned toward the screen.
She held up a photograph.
It showed me carrying boxes through the back entrance.
Taken from across the street.
Emily cried.
“I can’t go back to Michael. Daniel is watching him. I don’t know what he’ll do.”
I covered my mouth.
For seven years I had wondered why.
There was my answer.
She had stayed away because Daniel used me as leverage.
The third video showed Ethan asleep beside her.
Maybe three years old.
Emily whispered so she wouldn’t wake him.
“I made another mistake. I contacted Mom.”
Margaret.
“She says she wants to help. I want to believe her. But Daniel knows everything she knows.”
The fourth video was worse.
Emily had a bruise along her jaw.
She looked into the camera.
“Daniel came himself.”
My hands tightened.
“He said if I sign temporary guardianship papers, he’ll leave us alone.”
She laughed bitterly.
“I asked why he cares about Ethan so much.”
Her eyes filled.
“He finally told me.”
She explained the trust.
The voting rights.
The deadline at age seven.
Exactly as Margaret described.
Then Emily leaned close to the camera.
“If I die before Ethan turns seven, Daniel will come for him.”
Ruiz paused the video.
Dana stared at the screen.
“This alone destroys his custody argument.”
Ruiz shook her head.
“We’re beyond custody.”
She opened another file.
Emily was sitting in a parked car.
“I went to the police today.”
She held up a report number.
“I gave them copies of everything.”
Ruiz looked at me.
“We checked.”
“And?”
“No report exists under that number.”
Dana frowned.
“Destroyed?”
“Possibly never entered.”
The next clip provided part of the answer.
Emily looked terrified.
“The officer called Daniel.”
I felt sick.
“He told Daniel I was there.”
She had run that same night.
The officer named in the video had retired two years ago.
Detective Ruiz wrote the name down.
“Internal Affairs is already involved.”
We continued.
By video ten, Emily looked visibly ill.
She coughed several times.
“I think someone has been inside the trailer.”
She described finding a kitchen window unlocked.
Medicine moved.
Drawers slightly open.
Nothing stolen.
Video eleven was recorded five days later.
She looked worse.
“I saw Daniel today.”
I leaned forward.
“He was parked near Ethan’s school.”
She coughed again.
“He said he wanted to talk.”
Emily claimed Daniel approached her outside a pharmacy.
He told her she could end everything by signing guardianship documents.
She refused.
Then he grabbed her arm and whispered something.
Emily repeated it on camera.
“You don’t have six weeks left.”
My blood went cold.
Ruiz paused again.
“What did he mean?”
“I don’t know.”
The final video had been recorded nine days before Emily died.
She could barely speak.
Ethan was not visible.
“Michael.”
Hearing my name in her voice nearly stopped my heart.
“If you’re seeing this, I’m probably gone.”
I looked down.
Dana said nothing.
“I’m sorry.”
Emily wiped her eyes.
“I’m sorry I stole seven years from you.”
My vision blurred.
“I thought distance would protect you. Maybe I was wrong.”
She coughed into a towel.
When she lowered it, I saw a faint streak of blood.
“I need you to know Ethan knows about you. Not everything. But I told him his father was a good man.”
I closed my eyes.
“I showed him your picture. I told him about the diner. I told him you once drove three hours in the rain because I said I missed a pie from a bakery in Austin.”
Despite everything, I laughed through my tears.
I had done that.
The pie was terrible.
Emily had eaten half of it anyway.
On screen, she smiled weakly.
“I told him you burn pancakes when you’re distracted.”
I whispered, “Still do.”
Then her expression changed.
“If Daniel gets to Ethan before you do, fight.”
She leaned closer.
“Don’t believe anything he tells you about me.”
A long pause.
“And don’t trust my mother completely.”
I froze.
Dana looked at me.
Emily continued.
“She loves Ethan. I believe that. But fear makes her weak.”
The video ended.
I stared at the black screen.
Ruiz closed the laptop.
“There’s more.”
“What could possibly be more?”
“The first flash drive contains financial records.”
Dana leaned forward.
“Company records?”
“Yes. Payments from Blake Meridian subsidiaries to several shell companies.”
“For what?”
“We’re still tracing them.”
“Anything criminal?”
“Possibly.”
“What kind of shell companies?”
“Private security. Consulting. Medical logistics.”
The last two words caught my attention.
“Medical?”
Ruiz nodded.
“One company supplied pharmaceuticals to private clinics.”
I remembered Emily’s antibiotics.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m not thinking anything yet.”
“Ruiz.”
She looked at me.
“The medical examiner found no antibiotics in Emily’s system.”
“But she was prescribed them.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe she never took them.”
“Maybe.”
I knew from her tone that she didn’t believe it was that simple.
“Was anything else found?”
“The toxicology screen performed after her death was basic. They’re running expanded testing on preserved samples.”
“How long?”
“Soon.”
I stood.
“I need air.”
Outside the station, Dana followed me.
“You cannot confront Daniel.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You’re thinking about it.”
“I’m thinking about seven years.”
“That’s exactly why you need to stay away from him.”
I looked at the traffic moving down the street.
“I thought she abandoned me.”
“I know.”
“She was protecting me.”
“Trying to.”
“I should have found her.”
Dana’s voice hardened.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“You hired a private investigator. You searched. She was actively hiding under threat. You didn’t fail to solve some puzzle. Daniel created the puzzle.”
I hated that she made sense.
My phone rang.
Margaret.
I answered.
“Everything okay?”
She was crying.
“No.”
I straightened.
“What happened?”
“It’s Ethan.”
My heart stopped.
“What about him?”
“He’s gone.”
I couldn’t speak.
“What do you mean gone?”
“He was in the backyard with Officer Reynolds. I went inside for two minutes.”
My knees weakened.
“And?”
“When I came back, the officer was unconscious.”
Dana grabbed my arm.
I put the phone on speaker.
Margaret sobbed.
“The gate was open.”
Ruiz came rushing outside.
“What happened?”
I barely managed the words.
“They took my son.”
Everything after that moved at impossible speed.
Patrol units.
Roadblocks.
Amber Alert.
Neighbors questioned.
Security footage collected.
Officer Reynolds had been struck from behind.
He survived.
A neighbor’s camera showed a gray utility van stopping in the alley.
Two people wearing caps exited.
Forty-seven seconds later, the van left.
Ethan was inside.
I stood in my living room staring at the empty guest room.
His stuffed dinosaur lay on the bed.
He had left it behind.
That scared me more than anything.
He carried that toy everywhere.
I picked it up.
Something crackled inside.
I squeezed the stuffed dinosaur.
There was something hard in its stomach.
“Ruiz!”
She came inside.
I found a small seam sewn by hand.
Carefully, we opened it.
Inside was a folded note.
Emily’s handwriting.
Another message.
If Ethan is taken, look at the diner cameras from May 12.
I stared at the date.
May 12 had been four months earlier.
Before Emily died.
Before Ethan found me.
Ruiz looked at me.
“Do you keep footage that long?”
“Cloud backup. A year.”
We drove to the diner.
I logged into the security system.
May 12.
We scanned hours of footage.
Then at 2:17 p.m., a woman entered.
Baseball cap.
Sunglasses.
Thin.
She sat in the corner booth.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Emily.”
Ruiz froze.
I watched myself walk past her table three times.
I never recognized her.
She ordered coffee.
Stayed twenty minutes.
Then left.
My hands shook.
“Why didn’t she speak to me?”
Ruiz pointed to the screen.
“Wait.”
After Emily left, another person entered.
A man.
He sat in the same booth.
Black jacket.
Cap pulled low.
He stayed only two minutes.
Then stood.
As he turned toward the camera, his face became visible.
Daniel.
But that wasn’t the important part.
He left something beneath the table.
A small envelope taped underneath.
I ran to the booth.
Four months later, the envelope was still there.
Inside was a key card.
And an address.
No message.
Ruiz entered the address into her phone.
Her face changed.
“What?”
“It’s a storage facility in Irving.”
We arrived with six officers.
The key card opened a climate-controlled unit.
Inside were boxes.
Documents.
Photographs.
Hard drives.
Copies of police reports.
Bank records.
Pictures of Daniel meeting people.
And on a table in the center sat one framed photograph.
Emily holding newborn Ethan.
Beside it was another envelope.
MICHAEL.
I opened it.
There were only two sentences.
If Daniel takes Ethan, he will bring him to the place where our father taught us obedience.
Ask Margaret about Lake Hollow.
I called her immediately.
She stopped crying.
For three seconds, she said nothing.
Then whispered, “Oh God.”
“What is Lake Hollow?”
“Our family ranch.”
“Where?”
“Two hours west.”
Ruiz was already signaling officers.
I grabbed my keys.
Margaret’s voice cracked through the phone.
“Michael, listen to me.”
“What?”
“There’s an old storm cellar behind the main house.”
I felt my blood turn cold.
“What about it?”
“When Emily and Daniel were children, their father used to lock them inside when they disobeyed him.”
I stared at Ruiz.
Margaret whispered the rest.
“If Daniel took Ethan there, he isn’t trying to hide him.”
May you like
“What is he trying to do?”
“He’s trying to make him afraid enough to obey.”
