Chapter 3
I called Alicia back seventeen times.
Every call went straight to voicemail.
By the eighteenth attempt, my hands were shaking so badly I had to pull into a gas station.
"Daddy?"
Maya leaned forward from her car seat.
"Was that Mommy?"
I looked at her through the mirror.
I wanted to tell her everything.
I wanted to say her mother was alive, that she was coming home, that the nightmare was over.
But I didn't know any of those things for certain.
So I gave her the only promise I could keep.
"I heard her voice, baby. And I'm going to do everything I can to find her."
Maya began crying.
Not the frightened crying from the bridal room.
Something softer.
Something filled with hope.
"I knew she didn't forget me."
Those words nearly destroyed me.
I reached into the back seat and squeezed her hand.
"She never forgot you."
My phone rang again.
This time it was Marcus.
"Daniel, where are you?"
"On my way out of the city."
"Good. Stay away from the house."
My grip tightened.
"Why?"
"Because Vanessa just told everyone you've become unstable."
I stared through the windshield.
"What?"
"She's telling people you attacked her without warning and took Maya away during some kind of breakdown."
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
She was rewriting the story already.
"Marcus, Maya has a handprint on her face. Her dress is destroyed."
"I know. I photographed everything before the venue staff cleaned up."
I exhaled.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. Vanessa's mother has been making phone calls. Something isn't right."
I remembered Alicia's warning.
"Marcus, I need a favor."
"Anything."
"Go to my house, but don't enter. Tell me if anyone is watching it."
There was a pause.
"Daniel, what the hell is going on?"
I looked at Maya.
Then lowered my voice.
"Alicia called me."
Silence.
Marcus had known Alicia since college.
He had helped me search for her.
He had driven through Georgia with me for weeks after she disappeared.
Finally, he whispered, "That's impossible."
"I thought so too."
"Are you sure?"
"I'd recognize her voice anywhere."
Marcus breathed heavily.
"Where is she?"
"I don't know. But Vanessa's family knows something."
"Then we're going to find out."
I ended the call and drove toward my older sister Rachel's house.
Rachel lived outside Athens.
She was a social worker, a single mother, and the one person who had never accepted the idea that Alicia simply abandoned us.
When I called, she answered immediately.
"Daniel? Aren't you supposed to be getting married?"
"No."
I told her what had happened.
She didn't interrupt once.
When I finished, her voice was firm.
"Bring Maya here. Now."
Forty minutes later, Rachel opened her front door before I could knock.
She rushed toward Maya.
"Oh, sweetheart."
Maya collapsed into her arms.
Rachel looked over my daughter's shoulder at me.
Her eyes filled with tears.
But she didn't ask questions in front of Maya.
She simply carried her inside.
Rachel's eleven-year-old son, Caleb, was spending the weekend with his father.
The house was quiet.
Safe.
For the first time that day, I felt my shoulders loosen.
Rachel made Maya hot chocolate.
Then she found one of Caleb's oversized T-shirts and a pair of soft pajama pants.
Maya changed out of the ruined dress.
But she refused to let me throw it away.
"Can we keep it?" she whispered.
"Of course."
"Because you bought it for me."
I knelt beside her.
"And nothing Vanessa did changes how beautiful you looked in it."
Maya touched her cheek.
"Will the red go away?"
"Yes, baby."
"Will Vanessa go away too?"
I swallowed.
"Yes."
Maya studied me.
"Forever?"
I looked directly into her eyes.
"Forever."
Rachel took her upstairs to watch a movie.
Then she returned to the kitchen.
"Tell me about the call."
I repeated Alicia's words.
Rachel listened with her hands pressed against the countertop.
When I finished, she turned away.
I noticed her shoulders shaking.
"Rachel?"
She wiped her eyes.
"I told you."
"I know."
"I told you Alicia would never leave Maya."
"I know."
Rachel turned back.
"And you let Vanessa convince you otherwise."
The accusation hit hard because it was true.
For three years, I had been desperate for an explanation.
Vanessa had offered one.
She had said Alicia probably felt trapped.
That some women weren't meant for motherhood.
That I needed to stop grieving someone who had chosen another life.
Eventually, I had started repeating those words to myself.
Not because I believed them.
Because believing the alternative was unbearable.
Rachel pulled out a chair.
"There's something I need to tell you."
I sat down.
"Two months before Alicia disappeared, she came to see me."
My heart accelerated.
"What?"
"She was scared."
"Of what?"
"She said she'd found suspicious financial records at the medical foundation where she worked."
Alicia had been an accountant for the Whitmore Family Foundation.
It funded rehabilitation centers, children's programs, and private medical facilities across Georgia.
Vanessa's mother, Evelyn Whitmore, was one of its senior directors.
I felt sick.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Rachel looked ashamed.
"Because Alicia asked me not to. She said she didn't want to worry you until she understood what she'd found."
"What did she find?"
"Payments to clinics that didn't seem to exist. Insurance claims under names she couldn't verify. Large transfers to a private treatment facility."
"Which facility?"
Rachel hesitated.
"Willow Creek Recovery Center."
I had never heard of it.
Then Rachel reached into a kitchen drawer.
She removed a small envelope.
"Alicia left this with me."
I stared.
"You had something from her all this time?"
"She told me to give it to you only if someone ever contacted us claiming to know where she was."
"Why?"
"She said opening it too early could put Maya in danger."
My pulse thundered.
Inside the envelope was a photograph.
It showed Alicia standing beside a gray building.
Two men stood near a black SUV.
And behind them, partially hidden by the vehicle, was Evelyn Whitmore.
I turned the photograph over.
Alicia's handwriting covered the back.
IF I DISAPPEAR, FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Below that were six numbers.
A date.
And one sentence.
DANIEL, DON'T TRUST THE WOMAN WHO COMES TO COMFORT YOU.
I stared at those words.
Vanessa had entered my life four months after Alicia vanished.
She had approached me at a charity fundraiser.
She had told me she'd lost someone too.
She had known exactly how to make a grieving man feel understood.
My phone vibrated.
A message from Marcus.
He had sent a photograph of my house.
A black SUV was parked across the street.
Beneath the photograph were five words.
Daniel, you need to see this.
May you like
Then another message appeared.
The woman sitting in the passenger seat is Vanessa.
