Chapter 6
Daniel did not answer when I called back.
I tried again.
Straight to voicemail.
Ortiz contacted officers near the company building. I gave her Daniel’s office number, the alarm code, and the location of the service entrance. Then I waited beside June and Lily while she sent someone to check.
My mind filled the silence with terrible possibilities.
An officer found Daniel twenty minutes later. He was locked in a supply room, frightened but unharmed. Someone had entered through the service door and taken a computer from his desk.
Daniel had seen only the person’s back.
He was certain it was Preston.
“I’m sorry,” he told me when he called from the police station. “I should have left when you told me to.”
“You helped us find Anna. Go home when they let you.”
“I saved the records before he came in.”
I looked toward Ortiz. She heard him and nodded.
For the first time, Preston’s reach felt smaller. He could take a computer. He could not take back what Daniel had already given the police.
The next morning, Anna and June were reunited in a quiet room at the hospital.
I stood outside with Lily and my mother. Through the glass, I watched June run into Anna’s arms. Anna knelt despite her weakness and held her so tightly they both lost their balance.
Lily slipped her hand into mine.
“She’s happy crying,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Will June still be my sister?”
The question caught me off guard.
I knelt beside her.
“June is your sister. That won’t change.”
Lily studied my face.
“Even if Mommy goes away?”
“Even then.”
She leaned against me. I held her while Anna and June stayed together behind the glass.
Later, Anna asked me to come in. She had slept, but she still looked tired. June sat close beside her, unwilling to let go of her sleeve.
Anna told me what had happened.
She had followed a series of false invoices from my company to a business Preston controlled. When she tried to warn me, Vanessa told Preston. Two days later, June went missing on her way home with a trusted family friend.
That friend had believed Preston was taking June to Anna. Police were speaking with her.
Preston had called Anna that night. He wanted every copy of her records and a statement saying she had misunderstood the payments. He let her hear June’s voice once.
Anna gave him a copy. He still refused to release June.
“I kept looking,” she said. “Then I remembered your father once talked about the old passage in this house.”
She had come to my mother because she knew Ruth would listen.
I looked at June.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know.”
“You do now,” Anna said.
There was no forgiveness in her voice yet. I hadn’t asked for it.
Ortiz came by that afternoon to discuss where everyone would stay. My mother offered her house. Anna wanted June with her, and June wanted the same. A doctor expected Anna to be released soon, though she would need follow-up care.
I offered to pay for a place nearby if they preferred it.
Anna shook her head.
“We’ll decide after we get through today.”
That was fair.
I took Lily to my mother’s house that evening. She had a small guest room with two beds. Lily asked if June could sleep in the other one.
“We’ll ask her,” I said.
Before bedtime, Lily stood by the window.
“Is Grandpa Preston coming here?”
“No. There are officers watching the house, and Grandma and I are here.”
She looked down.
“He said secret friends go away if you tell.”
I felt my throat tighten.
“He was wrong. June is safe because you helped her.”
Lily turned.
“But I told you late.”
“You told me. And you gave her food when she needed it.”
She came into my arms.
For the first time since we found June, she cried.
I stayed until she fell asleep.
Then my mother brought me a box from her closet. Inside were photographs of my childhood, letters from Anna that had been returned, and a folded note my father had written about the house before he died.
She handed me the letters.
“I kept them because I hoped one day I could show you why I was angry,” she said. “I wish I’d shown you then.”
I opened the first envelope. Anna had written that she was pregnant. She was scared, but she wanted me to know. She had asked me to call her.
The second letter told me June had been born.
I sat on the floor and read it twice.
Anna had described her tiny hands and how she curled them around one of Anna’s fingers. She had included a photograph. June was only a few days old.
“I missed all of it,” I said.
My mother sat beside me.
“You can be there for what comes next.”
I wanted to believe her.
My phone rang. Ortiz had news.
Police had found Preston’s car abandoned near the river. His wallet and jacket were inside, but he was gone.
May you like
Then she told me they had found something in the trunk.
A folder containing photographs of Lily outside her school.
