Chapter 3
By noon, Grant had a lawyer.
By one, he had a statement.
By two, he had become the victim.
His attorney stood outside the police department and told reporters that an ugly custody dispute was being “weaponized against a loving father.”
I watched the clip on mute.
Grant looked tired.
Concerned.
Heartbroken.
Perfect.
He had always been good when someone else was watching.
Detective Ruiz took my phone away.
“Stop.”
“I need to know what he’s saying.”
“You already know what he’s saying.”
“He’s making me sound unstable.”
“Then don’t help him by becoming unstable.”
Her words stung.
But she was right.
I set the phone down.
Maisie sat on the floor of the interview room coloring beside a child specialist named Hannah.
Purple sun.
Green dog.
Blue grass.
She seemed calmer until Hannah drew a house.
Maisie took the crayon from her.
“No upstairs.”
Hannah did not react.
She simply asked, “You don’t want upstairs?”
Maisie scribbled over the top half of the page.
“No upstairs.”
I looked at Ruiz.
She had heard it too.
The storage drive from Vanessa’s car contained twenty-seven audio files.
Most were short.
Arguments.
Grant speaking on the phone.
Vanessa confronting him about money.
Grant denying that he had installed another camera after promising not to.
But one file was different.
It had been recorded five nights before I found Maisie.
Ruiz played part of it for me.
Grant’s voice came first.
“You said nobody knew.”
Then another man.
Older.
Rough.
“They didn’t.”
“Vanessa saw the box.”
“Then get rid of the box.”
“I did.”
“You should’ve done that years ago.”
“I was twelve.”
“That didn’t stop your father.”
Grant’s breathing became audible.
“I’m not him.”
The older man laughed.
“You’re exactly him.”
Then came the line Ruiz had quoted.
“You were supposed to finish what your father started in 1997.”
Grant answered quietly.
“I’m not touching the girl.”
My stomach turned.
Ruiz stopped the recording.
“What does that mean?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“The girl is Maisie.”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“We don’t assume.”
“I’m her mother. I get to assume.”
“You get to be terrified. We get to prove it.”
I stood and paced.
“Who is the man?”
“We’re analyzing the audio.”
“Grant knows.”
“Yes.”
“Ask him.”
“We have.”
“And?”
“He says the recording is fabricated.”
Of course he did.
Ruiz slid a photograph across the table.
A cardboard box sat on a garage workbench.
The photo had come from Vanessa’s drive.
On the side of the box, someone had written:
MERCER — 1997.
“What was inside?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where is it now?”
“Gone.”
“Grant got rid of it.”
“Maybe.”
I laughed without humor.
“You really like that word.”
“I like evidence.”
A knock came at the door.
Another detective entered and whispered to Ruiz.
She stood immediately.
“What?”
I rose too.
“What happened?”
Ruiz looked at me.
“Vanessa has been found.”
My knees almost gave out.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Relief hit me so hard I had to grab the table.
“Where?”
“A motel.”
“Why didn’t she call?”
“She says she thought someone followed her.”
“Grant?”
“She doesn’t know.”
Twenty minutes later, Vanessa sat across from us.
No makeup.
Hair pulled back.
Same clothes as yesterday.
She looked nothing like the polished woman I had spent two years resenting.
She looked exhausted.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I did not answer.
She looked toward the room where Maisie was playing.
“I should have done something sooner.”
“Yes.”
She flinched.
“I know.”
Ruiz placed a recorder on the table.
“Start with the box.”
Vanessa nodded.
“I found it in the attic in March.”
“What was inside?”
“Photographs. Newspaper clippings. A key. Some old cassette tapes.”
“What photographs?”
“Grant’s family.”
“Which family members?”
“His father. His mother. Grant as a child.”
She swallowed.
“And a little girl.”
My skin prickled.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“How old?”
“Maybe four.”
Maisie’s age.
“What was she doing in the photos?”
“Mostly standing outside a house.”
“What house?”
“Grant’s childhood home.”
Ruiz leaned forward.
“Where?”
“Briar County.”
The detective beside her typed something.
I knew Briar County.
Two hours north.
Grant had told me his family moved constantly when he was young.
He had never mentioned owning a childhood home.
Vanessa continued.
“One picture had writing on the back.”
“What did it say?”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“June 1997. Keep her away from the well.”
A silence fell over the room.
I stared at her.
“The well?”
“I don’t know what it means.”
“What happened to the girl?”
“I asked Grant.”
“What did he say?”
“He grabbed the picture out of my hand.”
Vanessa rubbed her wrist unconsciously.
“That was the first time I got scared of him.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He said the girl was his cousin.”
“Name?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
Ruiz asked, “What happened to the box?”
“The next morning it was gone.”
“And the tapes?”
“I kept one.”
My heart started pounding again.
“Where?”
Vanessa reached into her purse slowly.
The detective stopped her.
“I have a cassette,” she said.
He took it from the purse.
A faded label was taped across the front.
E.M. — JULY 2, 1997.
My initials were E.M.
Evelyn Morgan.
But that was impossible.
I had never known Grant in 1997.
I was nine years old.
I felt the room tilt.
“What does E.M. mean?”
Vanessa stared at me.
“I hoped you knew.”
I shook my head.
Ruiz asked for an old cassette player.
While someone searched for one, my mind raced.
1997.
I was nine.
Grant was twelve.
We had grown up in different cities.
At least, that was what I believed.
My father had died when I was six.
My mother rarely spoke about the years after.
We had moved three times before I turned ten.
One of those moves—
I suddenly looked at Ruiz.
“Briar County.”
“What?”
“I lived there.”
The words felt strange in my mouth.
“When?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
I closed my eyes.
“Maybe 1996. Maybe 1997.”
Vanessa went pale.
Ruiz said, “You never told us that.”
“I forgot.”
“You forgot where you lived?”
“I was a child.”
But that was not the whole truth.
I remembered a house.
Not clearly.
A porch.
Trees.
My mother crying in the kitchen.
A summer storm.
And water.
Deep, dark water.
My stomach clenched.
“No.”
Ruiz watched me.
“What do you remember?”
“Nothing.”
“Evelyn.”
“I said nothing.”
The cassette player arrived.
The detective inserted the tape.
Static.
Then a woman’s voice.
Young.
Shaking.
“I don’t care what Daniel says. I’m taking Evelyn away.”
I stopped breathing.
My mother.
I knew her voice instantly.
Then a man answered.
“If you leave, people will ask why.”
“Let them.”
“They’ll find out what happened.”
“They should.”
“You were there too.”
“I tried to stop him.”
“And nobody will believe you.”
My mother began crying.
Then another sound.
A child.
Faint.
“Mom?”
My own voice.
Nine years old.
I covered my mouth.
The tape continued.
My mother whispered, “Go upstairs, Evie.”
I remembered that nickname.
Nobody had called me Evie in decades.
Then the man spoke again.
“Daniel Mercer isn’t going to prison because your daughter wandered where she shouldn’t.”
Ruiz stopped the tape.
I stared at her.
Daniel Mercer.
Grant’s father.
I had met him once.
Only once.
At our wedding.
Grant introduced him as his estranged father.
Daniel had shaken my hand.
He stared at me for several seconds.
Then said, “You look familiar.”
I thought he was making conversation.
He left before dinner ended.
Grant told me his father had always been strange.
I stood so quickly the chair fell behind me.
“I need to call my mother.”
Ruiz said, “We should do that together.”
I dialed.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
On the third try, voicemail.
“Mom, call me. Now.”
Vanessa looked sick.
“There’s more on the tape.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“I listened before I hid it.”
“What else?”
She hesitated.
“Your mother mentions a girl named Claire.”
The name struck something deep inside me.
Not memory exactly.
Pain.
“Who was Claire?”
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
“I think she was the girl in the photographs.”
Ruiz asked, “Why?”
“Because your mother says…”
Vanessa stopped.
“Say it.”
“She says, ‘Claire didn’t fall into that well.’”
Nobody moved.
My phone rang.
Mom.
I grabbed it.
“Mom?”
Her voice came out thin and frightened.
“Evelyn, where is Maisie?”
“With me.”
“Is Grant there?”
“No.”
A sob escaped her.
“Thank God.”
“Mom, I need you to tell me about 1997.”
Silence.
“Mom?”
“Who told you?”
“We found a tape.”
Another silence.
Then she whispered, “You were never supposed to hear that.”
My anger exploded.
“I married his son!”
“I know.”
“You knew Grant was Daniel Mercer’s son?”
“Yes.”
I could barely speak.
“You knew?”
“I found out after your engagement.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I begged you not to marry him.”
“You told me you didn’t like his personality!”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
My mother began crying.
“Of Daniel.”
“Who was Claire?”
The line went quiet.
“Mom.”
She finally answered.
“She was my sister.”
My aunt.
A woman I had never been told existed.
“What happened to her?”
“She disappeared.”
“Into a well?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“How can you not know?”
“Because Daniel Mercer made sure nobody knew.”
I looked through the glass at Maisie.
She was holding her rabbit.
Hannah had drawn another house.
This one had no upstairs.
My mother continued.
“Evelyn, you need to get away from everyone with the Mercer name.”
“Grant is already under investigation.”
“Not Grant.”
My blood chilled.
“What?”
“The man on that tape with me wasn’t Daniel.”
I stared at Ruiz.
“Then who was he?”
My mother whispered the answer.
“Daniel’s brother.”
“Name?”
“Thomas.”
Ruiz started writing.
I asked, “Is he alive?”
My mother did not answer.
“Mom.”
“I saw him last week.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
“Where?”
“Outside my house.”
May you like
My voice disappeared.
My mother whispered, “Evelyn, I think he knows Maisie remembers him.”
