Chapter 8 - The car disappeared before police could reach it.The station went into lockdown.
Rachel insisted Ethan had been dead for almost ten years.
“But his name is on the contract,” Officer Harris said.
“I know.”
“Then explain it.”
Rachel looked terrified.
“I can't.”
She finally told us the truth.
Ethan had been Mark's partner in the old child-placement organization.
They were responsible for moving children between temporary guardians.
Rachel had been one of the mothers who had signed documents she didn't fully understand.
When she tried to reverse the arrangement, Ethan threatened her.
Then one day, he vanished.
Mark told everyone Ethan had died in a boating accident.
No body was recovered.
No official death certificate existed.
Yet his initials had appeared on a contract dated that month.
The next discovery was worse.
Police found an old photograph in the blue house.
Ethan was alive.
The photo had been taken three weeks earlier.
He stood beside a black SUV.
And beside him was Mark.
We had assumed Mark was the architect.
Maybe he wasn't.
Maybe he was working for someone.
That idea terrified me more.
Then investigators recovered deleted emails from Mark's laptop.
One message was short.
She suspects.
Another:
Mother is unstable enough to convince.
A reply:
Then accelerate Sunday.
And the final message:
Do not let Rachel reach the child first.
My heart sank.
Rachel wasn't part of the plan.
She was a problem.
So was I.
And Sophie was the prize.
Later that night, I was finally allowed to see Sophie.
She was asleep in a small room at the station.
I sat beside her.
She opened her eyes.
“Mommy?”
“I’m here.”
“Did Daddy come?”
“No.”
She stared at the ceiling.
“He's angry.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn't finish.”
“Finish what?”
“The story.”
I held her hand.
“What story?”
She whispered:
“The one where Mommy goes away.”
I felt tears fill my eyes.
“Sweetheart, Mommy is not going anywhere.”
Sophie squeezed my fingers.
Then she said something I would remember forever.
“Daddy said you would forget me.”
“What?”
“He said the story makes Mommy forget.”
I didn't understand.
Until she reached under her pillow and pulled out something.
A tiny plastic key.
“I found it in the bathroom.”
“Where?”
“In Daddy's cup.”
The key was no bigger than my thumbnail.
It had a number engraved on it.
317.
Officer Harris took it immediately.
The number belonged to a storage facility three blocks from Mark's office.
Police went there before dawn.
Unit 317 was empty.
Almost.
There was a mattress.
A suitcase.
Children's clothes.
A stack of fake identity documents.
And on the floor was a single wooden box.
Locked.
The little key fit perfectly.
Inside was one thing.
A VHS tape.
May you like
On the label, in Mark's handwriting, were three words:
WATCH ALONE, MOMMY.
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