Chapter 3
Dad immediately said it was impossible.
“I never signed a policy.”
Mom looked exhausted.
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the signature wasn't right.”
Dad stared.
“I've seen you sign a thousand things.”
She gave him a tired look.
“We were married for eleven years.”
For some reason, that almost made me smile.
Then Mom continued.
“I told Vanessa the signature looked forged.”
“What did she do?”
“She stopped pretending.”
Dad's face hardened.
Mom looked at me.
“She said I was always making trouble.”
I remembered Vanessa saying the same thing about Mom.
“She said Owen and I were finally building a stable life.”
Dad laughed bitterly.
“Stable?”
Mom squeezed my hand.
“She said I kept interfering.”
“What happened next?”
“She offered me coffee.”
Dad stared.
“You drank it?”
“I didn't know yet what she was capable of.”
Mom closed her eyes.
“I remember feeling dizzy.”
She touched the bruise near her temple.
“Then I woke up downstairs.”
“Vanessa carried you?”
“No.”
Mom's voice changed.
“There was a man.”
Dad leaned forward.
“What man?”
“I never saw his face clearly.”
“Voice?”
“Low.”
“Age?”
“I don't know.”
Mom looked frustrated.
“I was drugged.”
Dad softened.
“Okay.”
“He knew the house.”
That mattered.
“How?”
“He knew exactly where the basement storage room was.”
Dad stood.
“Who has been in my basement?”
Mom gave him a look.
“Your company workers.”
Dad's construction company occasionally stored equipment at the house.
Friends had helped renovate.
Relatives had visited.
Dozens of people.
Mom continued.
“The man kept asking where the copy was.”
“What copy?”
“I don't know.”
“He thought you had something.”
Dad frowned.
“What?”
“I couldn't understand.”
Then Mom looked at him carefully.
“Owen, what are you involved in?”
Dad's face changed.
“I am not involved in anything.”
“Someone locked me under your house.”
“I know.”
“They forged your signature.”
“I know.”
“They asked me for a copy of something.”
“I don't know what.”
Mom stared at him.
“Think.”
He did.
Then something clearly struck him.
“My father.”
I looked up.
Grandpa Walter had died two years earlier.
“What about him?”
Mom asked.
Dad turned toward the window.
“Before Dad died, he gave me a file.”
“What file?”
“He said it concerned Hale Development.”
That was Dad's company.
He had inherited part of it from Grandpa.
His older brother Caleb owned the rest.
Mom asked:
“What was inside?”
“I never opened it.”
She stared.
Dad looked embarrassed.
“I thought it was old business records.”
“Where is it?”
“At the office.”
Mom's face tightened.
“Is it?”
Dad stopped.
“What do you mean?”
“The man downstairs said, ‘Walter left it with Owen.’”
I felt Dad's hand tighten around the bed rail.
“How would he know?”
“I don't know.”
“Did Vanessa hear him say that?”
“Yes.”
Dad looked sick.
Police arrived to interview Mom.
Detective Elena Ruiz was the woman who had spoken to me at the house.
She brought my tablet.
“You did something very important, Sophie.”
Dad immediately said:
“She shouldn't have had to.”
Detective Ruiz nodded.
“No, she shouldn't.”
That made me like her.
She played my recording.
Vanessa's voice filled the hospital room.
The girl heard her.
Then an unknown male voice answered faintly.
I couldn't understand it.
A forensic team would try to clean the audio.
Next:
Owen will be home soon.
The male voice again.
Vanessa:
You said she would be unconscious longer.
Dad closed his eyes.
Detective Ruiz paused.
“Do you recognize the male voice?”
Mom shook her head.
Dad listened again.
Then again.
His face changed.
“What?”
Ruiz asked.
Dad hesitated.
“I don't know.”
“What did you hear?”
“He sounds familiar.”
“Who?”
Dad looked at me.
Then Mom.
“My brother.”
My stomach dropped.
Uncle Caleb.
He came to every birthday.
He taught me to ride my bike.
He brought me a telescope last Christmas.
Mom stared.
“No.”
Dad whispered:
“I said I don't know.”
Detective Ruiz asked:
“Where is Caleb now?”
Dad pulled out his phone.
He called.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then he checked their company scheduling app.
Caleb had marked himself out of town.
Boston.
But his company truck's GPS showed something else.
Dad's face went white.
“What?”
Mom asked.
“The truck.”
“Where?”
Dad turned the screen.
The vehicle had been parked less than a mile from our house from 9:43 that morning until 12:18.
Detective Ruiz immediately called officers.
Dad looked like he might be sick.
“This doesn't prove he was there.”
“No,” Ruiz said.
“But it gives us somewhere to start.”
Caleb finally called back twenty minutes later.
Dad put him on speaker.
“Where are you?”
“Boston.”
I heard traffic.
Dad said:
“Your truck isn't.”
Silence.
Caleb laughed.
“I took the sedan.”
“Who has the truck?”
“One of the guys.”
“Who?”
“I don't remember.”
“You don't remember who you gave a sixty-thousand-dollar company truck to?”
Caleb's voice hardened.
“What is this?”
“Natalie was kidnapped.”
Silence.
Then:
“What?”
Dad watched the phone.
“Someone drugged her and locked her in my basement.”
“That is insane.”
“Vanessa is gone.”
Another silence.
Caleb said:
“Owen, I'm sorry.”
Dad's eyes narrowed.
“I didn't tell you Natalie was alive.”
Nobody breathed.
Caleb stopped talking.
Dad's voice dropped.
“I said she was kidnapped.”
No answer.
“You just said you're sorry.”
Still nothing.
“How did you know she survived?”
Caleb disconnected.
Mom whispered:
“Oh my God.”
Detective Ruiz was already moving.
Police searched Caleb's house.
Empty.
His sedan was found at a train station.
He wasn't in Boston.
He had disappeared.
Dad sat beside Mom's bed afterward.
Neither spoke for several minutes.
Then Mom said:
“Open Walter's file.”
Dad nodded.
We went home that evening with a police escort.
Mom stayed overnight at the hospital.
I refused to leave Dad's side.
The basement was sealed as a crime scene.
Seeing the door made me shake.
Dad noticed.
“We don't have to stay here.”
I wanted to leave.
But I also hated the idea that Vanessa had stolen my house from me.
“Your office.”
“What?”
“I'll stay in your office.”
He nodded.
We drove to Hale Development.
The building was almost empty.
Dad unlocked a cabinet behind his desk.
He searched.
Then searched again.
“What?”
I asked.
He stared at the empty shelf.
“The file is gone.”
“Grandpa's?”
“Yes.”
His face tightened.
“Someone took it.”
A voice came from the doorway.
“Looking for this?”
Dad spun around.
Uncle Caleb stood there.
May you like
He was holding an old brown folder.
And for the first time in my life, I saw a gun in his other hand.
