Chapter 18 - The Package
Police opened the package.
Inside was Emily’s wedding photograph.
Margaret had cut Emily out of it.
Daniel remained beside his mother.
Under the photograph lay the blue onesie Margaret criticized the morning Emily left.
Across the front, written in black marker:
HE BELONGS TO US.
Daniel went white when Rachel sent him the picture.
Emily felt something different.
Not fear exactly.
Clarity.
Margaret still believed Daniel and Noah were possessions.
That was the center of everything.
The house.
The money.
The marriage.
The baby.
Control.
Police traced a traffic-camera image of Margaret’s car to a small town ninety miles away.
Then another camera caught her entering a motel under a false name.
By the time officers arrived, she was gone.
But she had left a phone charger behind.
The motel’s Wi-Fi records showed her device connected for forty-three minutes.
Investigators pulled metadata from cloud activity.
She had accessed one account.
Daniel’s old family calendar.
Emily stared at Rachel.
“What’s on it?”
Rachel’s face changed.
“Your pediatric appointment tomorrow.”
The appointment was canceled immediately.
Security doubled.
Daniel came to the apartment and sat on the floor outside Noah’s nursery.
Emily watched him for a long moment.
“Why are you sitting there?”
“I don’t want to sleep.”
“You can’t guard a door forever.”
“I know.”
She sat across from him.
Daniel looked exhausted.
“I keep thinking about all the times you asked me to believe you.”
Emily said nothing.
“I thought defending my mother made me loyal.”
“It made you safe from her anger.”
He looked up.
The sentence landed.
Emily continued. “You weren’t protecting her. You were protecting yourself from having to confront her.”
His eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Before either could say more, Rachel called.
Police had found Margaret’s car.
Abandoned near an old farmhouse outside town.
The farmhouse belonged to someone Daniel knew.
May you like
Judge William Harlow.
And his car was parked outside too.
