Chapter 4
Rebecca took us to her house in Fort Worth.
She gave Noah one of her son’s old rooms and found clean pajamas for both of us.
I couldn’t sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Dad in handcuffs.
At two in the morning, I found Rebecca sitting at the kitchen table.
Mom’s photograph lay in front of her.
“She called me the night she died,” Rebecca said.
I stopped in the doorway.
“What did she say?”
“That she had discovered someone stealing money from the family company.”
Dad owned a construction business with his younger brother, Thomas.
Melissa had worked there as an accountant before Mom died.
“She thought it was Melissa?”
“She didn’t know yet.”
Rebecca rubbed her eyes.
“Sarah said she had copied records and placed them in a blue metal box. She wanted me to meet her the next morning.”
“But she died that night.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told the police?”
“I did. Detective Mercer said grief was making me suspicious.”
Mercer had investigated Mom’s crash.
The same man had just arrested Dad.
Rebecca slid a newspaper clipping toward me.
The bridge railing had been broken.
Mom’s car had never been recovered from the river.
Divers found part of a door and one of her shoes.
There was no body.
“Dad said they proved she was in the car.”
“They found her blood on the seat.”
A sound came from the hallway.
Noah stood there holding his blanket.
“I know where the blue box is.”
Rebecca and I stared at him.
He walked to the table.
“Mom showed me.”
“You were three,” I said.
“I remember the blue bird.”
Rebecca pulled out a chair.
“What blue bird?”
Noah closed his eyes.
“Mom took us to the park. Emma was on the swings. She put something inside a wall behind a blue bird.”
A memory flashed through me.
A neighborhood park near our old church.
There had been a mosaic of birds on the restroom building.
Mom had taken us there the afternoon she died.
She pushed me on the swing and kept looking toward the parking lot.
At the time, I thought she was waiting for Dad.
“We need to go now,” I said.
Rebecca checked the window.
“It’s two in the morning.”
“Melissa knows we’re looking.”
Rebecca hesitated, then reached for her keys.
The park was deserted when we arrived.
The restroom building was scheduled for demolition and surrounded by fencing.
One mosaic remained on the wall.
A blue jay.
Rebecca used a tire iron to loosen the cracked tile beneath it.
Behind the tile was a narrow metal compartment.
Empty.
My stomach dropped.
“No,” Rebecca whispered.
Then Noah pointed toward the mud.
“Someone came here.”
Fresh footprints crossed the wet ground.
A cigarette still burned beside the wall.
Headlights appeared behind us.
A dark sedan rolled into the parking lot with its lights off.
Rebecca grabbed our hands.
“Run.”
We sprinted toward the SUV.
The sedan accelerated.
Rebecca pushed Noah into the back seat.
A man jumped out of the sedan and grabbed my jacket.
I screamed and twisted away.
He pulled me backward.
Rebecca struck his arm with the tire iron.
He cursed and released me.
We climbed into the SUV.
Rebecca locked the doors as the man slammed both hands against my window.
I recognized him.
He had been standing behind Mercer during Dad’s arrest.
Another police officer.
Rebecca drove over the curb and escaped.
The sedan followed us for three miles.
Then police lights appeared behind it.
The man turned away.
When we reached Rebecca’s house, the front door was open.
Nothing appeared stolen.
But Mom’s photograph was gone.
A message had been written across the kitchen wall.
STOP DIGGING.
Noah started crying.
Rebecca called 911.
I grabbed her wrist.
“What if Mercer answers?”
May you like
She looked at the threat.
Then she called Officer Ruiz directly.
