Chapter 6
I grabbed the back of a chair because my legs stopped working.
“What does that mean?”
Lauren stared at me.
Detective Ruiz stepped closer.
“Explain.”
Lauren shook her head.
“I said it wrong.”
“No,” Ruiz said. “You said exactly what you meant. Explain it.”
Lauren looked toward the stairs.
Then at the officers.
Then finally at me.
“David wanted a family.”
I almost laughed because the sentence made no sense.
“What?”
“When we were together, he talked about having children constantly.”
“What does that have to do with Sophie?”
Lauren swallowed.
“I couldn’t have children.”
The room stayed silent.
“I found out when I was twenty-six. There were complications. Surgery.”
I knew that.
Lauren had told me early in our relationship.
She had said she was fine with being a stepmother.
She said Sophie was enough.
I remembered being touched by it.
Now every memory felt contaminated.
“David blamed me,” Lauren continued. “He became obsessed with the idea that someone else had stolen the life he deserved.”
Ruiz frowned.
“Someone else?”
“You,” Lauren said to me.
The word barely registered.
“Me?”
“He saw that photo from the fundraiser. You. Rachel. Sophie.”
Her voice broke.
“A happy family.”
I felt sick.
“He became obsessed with Sophie?”
“No. Not like that.”
“Then explain.”
“He said Rachel had everything I couldn’t have.”
I stared at her.
“You.”
She nodded.
“He blamed Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“For being a mother?”
“For having the life he thought should have been ours.”
The insanity of it made my skin crawl.
“But why Sophie now?”
Lauren covered her face.
“Because he thinks she belongs with me.”
Nobody spoke.
I heard rain hitting the windows.
Ruiz said, “What exactly has he said about the child?”
Lauren lowered her hands.
“He said after Rachel died, I could marry Mark and raise Sophie.”
My stomach turned violently.
“You knew that before you married me?”
“No!”
She rushed toward me.
An officer stopped her.
“I swear, Mark. He never told me that part until seven months ago.”
“When he came back.”
“Yes.”
“And you still stayed married to me.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Tell me!”
“I thought he was trying to destroy us.”
“He was telling you he may have murdered my wife so you could take her place!”
“I didn’t believe him.”
“Stop saying that.”
My voice cracked.
“You believed him enough to pay him forty-seven thousand dollars.”
Lauren cried harder.
“He knew things about Rachel’s crash that weren’t public.”
I went completely still.
Ruiz reacted immediately.
“What things?”
Lauren’s voice became small.
“He knew her driver-side headlight broke before she hit the guardrail.”
Ruiz exchanged a look with another officer.
“He said he clipped her rear bumper near the curve. She overcorrected.”
I couldn’t breathe.
The official report said Rachel had entered the curve too fast on wet pavement.
Her car had rotated.
Hit the guardrail.
Rolled down an embankment.
She died before paramedics arrived.
“Did David say he intended to kill her?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
“That he wanted to scare her.”
I closed my eyes.
“He said she panicked.”
Ruiz’s voice sharpened.
“And you kept this information for seven months.”
Lauren screamed suddenly.
“I was scared!”
Everyone jumped.
She was sobbing now.
“He said if I went to police, he would hurt Sophie. He knew her school. He sent pictures of her getting off the bus.”
My anger stopped.
For one second.
Because that changed something.
Not everything.
But something.
“You have pictures?”
“They disappeared.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Sophie was being threatened?”
“Because you would go after him!”
“Yes!”
“And he would kill you!”
She said it with such certainty that the room went quiet.
I stared at her.
“You thought staying silent protected us?”
“Yes.”
“You sold my dead wife’s jewelry to pay him.”
“Yes.”
“You forged my signature.”
“Yes.”
“You lied to Jason.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever think maybe your silence was exactly what David wanted?”
Lauren broke down.
“I know.”
Detective Ruiz’s radio crackled.
An officer’s voice.
“Possible visual on juvenile female near East Mercer access road.”
My heart stopped.
Ruiz grabbed the radio.
“Confirm description.”
“Twelve-ish. Gray hoodie. Moving west on foot.”
Sophie.
“I’m going.”
Ruiz didn’t argue this time.
“You ride with Officer Chen.”
We were outside in seconds.
Rain hit my face.
I got into the back seat of a patrol SUV.
Daniel tried to come.
Ruiz stopped him.
“Stay here.”
Lauren shouted after me.
“Mark!”
I looked back once.
She stood in the doorway between two officers.
“You need to know one more thing!”
I almost ignored her.
Then something in her voice stopped me.
“What?”
“He knows Sophie’s phone is tracked.”
My chest tightened.
“How?”
“He made me tell him.”
“Why?”
Lauren’s face collapsed.
“Because he wanted you to follow.”
Ruiz immediately leaned toward the patrol car.
“Wait.”
Too late.
The radio erupted.
“Unit four, child is running. Black SUV approaching from north side.”
I felt all the blood leave my body.
“Go!”
Officer Chen accelerated.
The neighborhood disappeared behind us.
Ruiz followed in another car.
Sirens cut through the rain.
I watched the location app.
Sophie’s dot moved.
Then stopped.
Then disappeared.
“No.”
I refreshed.
Nothing.
“Her phone’s off.”
Chen spoke into his radio.
“Status?”
Static.
Then:
“Black Explorer left access road southbound. Possible juvenile inside.”
I punched the seat.
“No!”
Chen accelerated harder.
“License plate?”
“Obscured.”
I called Sophie’s phone.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Again.
Again.
“Sophie, answer me.”
Chen glanced at me.
“We’ll find her.”
I couldn’t respond.
My daughter had gone out trying to fix something the adults had destroyed.
Because I had failed to make her feel safe.
Because she had heard enough to believe she needed to act.
The radio crackled.
“Explorer spotted entering old Carver station.”
Jason’s meeting place.
Chen turned sharply.
The car fishtailed slightly.
I gripped the door.
We reached the abandoned station less than three minutes later.
Two police cars blocked the road.
The Explorer sat near the boarded convenience store.
Driver door open.
Engine running.
No one inside.
I jumped from the patrol car.
An officer stopped me.
“Stay back.”
“That’s my daughter!”
“Sir!”
Then I heard it.
A scream.
From inside the old building.
“SOPHIE!”
I ran before anyone could stop me.
The front door had been forced open.
Darkness.
Broken glass.
Rainwater.
I heard footsteps behind me.
Officers shouting.
Then another sound.
My daughter crying.
“Dad!”
I followed her voice into a storage room.
A flashlight beam swept across the walls.
Sophie stood in the corner.
Alone.
I reached her.
She threw herself into my arms.
“Oh, God.”
I held her so tightly she gasped.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“You’re okay.”
“He grabbed me.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“He left.”
Officers spread through the building.
Ruiz arrived.
She crouched beside Sophie.
“What happened?”
Sophie wiped her face.
“I came here because I wanted the video.”
My heart broke.
“He drove up and asked if I was Lauren’s daughter.”
Ruiz asked, “What did you say?”
“I said I was Rachel’s daughter.”
Sophie looked at me.
“And his face changed.”
“How?”
“He looked scared.”
Ruiz leaned forward.
“What happened next?”
“He put me in the car.”
I clenched my jaw.
“He said he wasn’t going to hurt me. He just needed Dad to understand.”
“Understand what?”
Sophie held out her hand.
There was a tiny black USB drive in her palm.
“He gave me this.”
Every officer in the room went still.
Ruiz took it carefully with a gloved hand.
“He said, ‘Give this to your father.’”
My throat tightened.
“Did he say anything else?”
Sophie nodded.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“He said Lauren is lying.”
I felt cold again.
“About what?”
“Everything.”
Ruiz asked, “Did he specify?”
Sophie nodded.
“He said Mom’s crash wasn’t supposed to happen.”
I swallowed.
“And then?”
“He said he wasn’t the one driving.”
The room went silent.
Ruiz looked at the USB drive.
I looked at Sophie.
“Did he say who was?”
She nodded slowly.
May you like
Then she whispered,
“He said Lauren was.”
