Chapter 3
Ten million dollars.
I stared at the phone as though the number might somehow explain why my little girl had been taken.
Marcus was shaking.
Officer Bennett motioned for everyone to stay quiet.
The man on the phone continued.
"You have forty-eight hours."
Marcus leaned over the table.
"Please. Let me talk to my daughter."
A soft laugh.
"Now you want to talk to her?"
Marcus closed his eyes.
"Please."
The man waited.
Then I heard Lily crying.
Not loudly.
Just those little broken breaths a child makes when she is trying to be brave.
"Mommy?"
I lunged toward the phone.
"Baby, I'm here!"
"Mommy, I want to come home."
My knees hit the carpet.
"Oh, sweetheart. I know. I promise I'm trying to get you home."
"Are you mad at me?"
The question destroyed me.
"No! Never!"
"I thought I could fix everything."
I began sobbing.
"You don't have to fix anything, Lily. You're my little girl. That's all you have to be."
The man's voice interrupted.
"Enough."
Then the call ended.
I screamed.
Officer Bennett was already speaking into his radio.
Officers moved quickly through the house.
Someone asked Marcus to surrender his phone for analysis.
Someone else brought me water.
I pushed it away.
For six days, I had been terrified that Lily was dead.
Now I knew she was alive.
And somehow that made every second more urgent.
Marcus knelt beside me.
"Nia."
I pulled away.
"Don't touch me."
His hand fell.
"I'm going to bring her home."
I looked up at him.
"You're going to help bring her home. The police will do their job. And you are going to tell them everything."
He nodded.
"Everything."
Officer Bennett returned.
"The call was routed through an internet service. Our technicians are working on it."
Marcus stood.
"I know who that was."
Vanessa began crying.
"Marcus, don't."
He turned toward her.
"Shut up."
The words were cold.
Officer Bennett looked between them.
"Tell me."
Marcus took a breath.
"Daniel Carter. Vanessa's older brother."
Vanessa covered her face.
I stared at her.
"Your brother?"
She nodded.
I couldn't speak.
The man who had taken my daughter was connected to the woman who had taken my husband.
Officer Bennett began asking questions.
Marcus explained that Daniel had been involved in a failed construction investment several years earlier.
Marcus had invested money in the project.
When the company collapsed, Daniel claimed Marcus owed him millions.
"Did you?" Bennett asked.
"No. We had a signed agreement. Daniel made unauthorized transfers and the company went bankrupt."
"Was he prosecuted?"
"Investigated. But the case fell apart when records disappeared."
Vanessa suddenly spoke.
"That's not the whole story."
Marcus turned toward her.
"What?"
She wiped her eyes.
"Daniel lost everything. His house. His business. His marriage."
Marcus shook his head.
"He stole from the company."
"He said you betrayed him!"
My stomach twisted.
"Is that why you approached my husband?"
Vanessa looked at me.
For a moment, she said nothing.
Then she whispered, "At first."
Marcus took a step backward.
"What?"
Vanessa started crying harder.
"Daniel asked me to get close to you. He wanted access to your accounts. Your schedule. Your family."
Marcus stared at her.
"You planned this?"
She shook her head desperately.
"I wasn't supposed to fall in love with you."
I felt sick.
Even now, she was talking about love.
My daughter was being held somewhere by a man who had used her sister to enter our lives.
And Vanessa still wanted Marcus to believe their affair meant something.
"Did you tell Daniel about Lily?" I asked.
She couldn't meet my eyes.
"Answer me."
"Yes."
My voice broke.
"Did you tell him where she slept?"
Vanessa started shaking.
"I gave him the house layout."
Marcus grabbed the back of a chair.
Officer Bennett moved closer.
"Ms. Carter, you're going to need an attorney."
She began crying openly.
"I didn't know he would take her!"
I wanted to believe there was a difference between betrayal and kidnapping.
But she had given a dangerous man information about my child.
Whatever she claimed to have intended, Lily was paying the price.
I looked at Officer Bennett.
"Please take her out of my house."
He nodded.
Two officers escorted Vanessa outside.
She kept calling Marcus's name.
He never looked at her.
For the next three hours, I answered questions.
What had Lily been wearing?
Had she ever mentioned Vanessa?
Had anyone approached her at school?
Then Officer Bennett asked something unexpected.
"Mrs. Bennett, did Lily have any special places she liked to visit with her father?"
I looked toward Marcus.
He lowered his eyes.
"There was a lake house."
My heart tightened.
Marcus's parents had owned a little cabin outside Cedar Ridge.
We used to spend summers there.
Lily loved the place.
She called it her castle.
But Marcus had sold it two years earlier.
"Why would that matter?" I asked.
Officer Bennett explained that kidnappers sometimes used familiar locations to make victims cooperative.
Marcus shook his head.
"Daniel doesn't know about the lake house."
I looked at him.
"Are you sure?"
He hesitated.
And that hesitation told me everything.
"Marcus."
He swallowed.
"I took Vanessa there once."
I closed my eyes.
Of course he had.
The place where our daughter learned to swim.
The porch where Marcus proposed to me.
The little cabin where we celebrated Lily's fifth birthday.
He had taken Vanessa there.
I stood up.
"I need air."
Officer Bennett followed me onto the porch.
The afternoon sun was painfully bright.
Neighbors were standing across the street pretending not to watch.
I wrapped my arms around myself.
"Do you think she's alive?"
He hesitated.
Then answered carefully.
"We heard her voice today. That's important."
"But do you think we'll find her?"
"We're doing everything we can."
I looked toward the road.
Six days ago, Lily had vanished from that same neighborhood.
I had replayed every mistake.
Every moment I should have checked on her.
Every warning I might have missed.
Officer Bennett lowered his voice.
"Mrs. Bennett, there's something I want you to understand."
I looked at him.
"Lily did not cause this. Neither did you."
I started crying again.
Then his radio crackled.
An officer reported that Daniel's vehicle had been spotted near Cedar Ridge.
My breath caught.
The lake house.
Marcus appeared in the doorway.
"What happened?"
Officer Bennett turned.
"We have a possible location."
For the first time in six days, hope rushed through me.
Then his radio crackled again.
A second officer spoke urgently.
"Sir, there's smoke coming from the property."
My heart stopped.
"What smoke?"
Officer Bennett didn't answer.
Then the radio voice returned.
May you like
"The cabin is on fire."
And suddenly, the world beneath me disappeared.
