CHAPTER 9
Police searched the woods for hours.
They found footprints.
A cigarette butt.
A spot where someone had been kneeling behind a fallen tree.
No person.
No camera.
No certainty that Daniel had been there.
The photograph had been sent through a disposable number.
By sunrise, Eleanor’s property looked like a military checkpoint.
Lucas refused to leave his bedroom.
Emma cried every time a stranger entered the house.
And I began checking windows without realizing I was doing it.
Detective Alvarez hated Daniel’s message.
She hated it because it was threatening without being legally specific.
“I can see my family,” she repeated.
“He knew exactly what he was doing.”
“Can you revoke his bond?”
“We’re trying.”
The judge ordered Daniel to stay five miles away from Eleanor’s property.
He also prohibited direct or indirect contact with Lucas, Emma, Eleanor, Vanessa, and me.
Daniel’s attorney called the order unnecessary.
I called it paper.
Still, paper was better than nothing.
Then the financial investigators found something useful.
Daniel had transferred two hundred thousand dollars to a shell company controlled by Mason Reed.
The transfer happened three days before the pool.
Another payment went out the morning before Mason’s body was discovered.
“This connects them,” I said.
“It connects money.”
Alvarez had returned to her favorite language.
“What was the payment for?”
“The invoice says private security consulting.”
“You believe that?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She almost smiled.
There was more.
The gunman from the motel had been identified as Tyler Knox.
Former military.
Former private contractor.
And one of Mason Reed’s old employees.
Knox refused to talk.
Until prosecutors showed him the murder charge he might face if Vanessa had been hit by the bullet that shattered the mirror.
Then he asked for a lawyer.
Two days later, he started negotiating.
He claimed Mason had hired him.
Not Daniel.
That disappointed me until Alvarez asked one question.
“When?”
Knox answered.
The day after Mason died.
He had received instructions through a scheduled encrypted message Mason had prepared earlier.
That meant Mason expected something might happen to him.
The scheduled message also contained a location.
A storage unit.
Police opened it that afternoon.
Inside were three boxes.
A laptop.
Cash.
Fake passports.
And recordings Mason had made of Daniel.
I didn’t know whether Mason had grown a conscience.
Maybe he had simply grown afraid.
Either way, the dead man had finally started talking.
One recording captured Daniel furious after Vanessa refused Plan Three.
“I’m done waiting for her to become useful.”
Mason asked, “Then why keep her involved?”
“Because juries like simple stories.”
“What story?”
“Distraught mother. Negligent nanny. Tragic baby.”
Daniel laughed.
“Everyone goes to prison except me.”
I had to stop listening.
Another recording discussed Arthur.
Mason said, “The old man’s audit is getting close.”
Daniel replied, “Then the old man needs to stop being a problem.”
There was no direct admission.
No description.
But it was enough for police to reopen Arthur’s death formally.
The most important recording came last.
It was made after the pool.
Daniel sounded furious.
“You should have taken Lucas’s tablet.”
Mason answered, “I didn’t know he had the feed.”
“You were paid to know.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Fix it.”
“How?”
Silence.
Then Daniel said, “Start with Grace.”
I stopped the recording.
“He ordered the threats.”
Alvarez nodded.
“And possibly the break-in.”
“Possibly?”
She gave me a tired look.
“Fine. Almost certainly.”
That evening, the prosecutor filed an emergency motion to revoke Daniel’s bond.
This time, the judge agreed.
Police went to Daniel’s penthouse.
He was gone.
His electronic monitor had been cut.
His passport remained in a court safe.
But Daniel Hale owned planes.
Boats.
Properties.
Employees who owed him favors.
The city went into a manhunt.
Alvarez called me personally.
“Do not leave the house.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Not for anything.”
“What about Lucas’s therapy tomorrow?”
“Canceled.”
“Emma’s doctor?”
“They’ll come to you.”
I looked at Eleanor.
She was locking the back door even though two officers stood outside.
“Where do you think he’ll go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Vanessa?”
“She’s secure.”
“What if he comes here?”
“Then he won’t get far.”
I wanted to believe that.
At midnight, Lucas knocked on my bedroom door.
“I can’t sleep.”
I moved aside.
He climbed onto the bed.
I didn’t tell him he was getting too old for this.
Nobody was too old to be scared.
He stared at the ceiling.
“Dad ran away.”
“Yes.”
“Because he’s guilty?”
“I think so.”
“Will he come for me?”
“I don’t know.”
His breathing changed.
I turned toward him.
“But there are police outside.”
“He pays police.”
I froze.
“What?”
Lucas looked at me.
“Dad said that.”
“When?”
“A long time ago.”
“What exactly?”
“He said everyone has a price.”
I thought of Alvarez.
Not everyone.
“Some people can’t be bought.”
“Like you?”
“Yes.”
“Like Detective Alvarez?”
“Yes.”
He was quiet.
Then he whispered, “I know where Dad might go.”
I sat up.
“Where?”
“Grandpa’s cabin.”
“Arthur’s?”
Lucas nodded.
“Dad used to go there when Grandma and Grandpa were mad at him.”
I grabbed my phone.
Alvarez answered immediately.
Thirty minutes later, officers were heading toward Arthur’s old hunting cabin eighty miles north.
They found Daniel’s abandoned SUV on a dirt road five miles away.
No Daniel.
But they found fresh footprints leading into the woods.
A helicopter joined the search.
By dawn, news stations were reporting that authorities had surrounded the area.
Lucas and I watched from the kitchen.
Eleanor held Emma.
Nobody spoke.
Then Alvarez called.
“We found him.”
My knees weakened.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Did he surrender?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“He was trying to reach a private airstrip.”
I closed my eyes.
“Is he in custody?”
“Yes.”
Relief hit me so hard I started crying.
Lucas saw my face.
“They got him?”
I nodded.
“They got him.”
He started crying too.
We hugged.
For the first time, I believed Daniel might actually stay behind bars.
Then Alvarez added one more thing.
“Grace, there’s something else.”
My relief disappeared.
“What?”
“They found a phone on him.”
“So?”
“It contained photographs.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What photographs?”
“You.”
I looked toward the dark windows.
“How many?”
“Hundreds.”
My stomach turned.
“At Tessa’s apartment. Eleanor’s house. The hospital. Your old apartment.”
I could barely speak.
“He had me followed.”
“For months.”
“Before the pool?”
“Yes.”
The realization was worse than the threats.
Daniel hadn’t chosen me at random because I happened to be working that afternoon.
He had studied me.
My routines.
My friendships.
My habits.
May you like
He had picked me because he believed I was the perfect person to blame.
And now I wanted to know why.
