Chapter 4: The Messages She Kept
My daughter held her phone in both hands, though the weight of it seemed to hurt. The screen had gone dark. She touched it awake, then stopped before opening the thread.
The hospital room smelled of antiseptic and warmed blankets. Somewhere beyond the door, a cart rattled over a seam in the floor. Marcy sat close to the bed, her hand resting on the sheet—not touching our daughter unless she asked.
I kept my hands flat on my knees.
“Do you want to look at the messages now?” I asked.
She studied my face, perhaps checking whether I’d already decided what she ought to do.
“Some of them,” she said. “Not all.”
“Okay.”
She unlocked the phone herself. Her thumb moved through the thread, past messages we’d seen the night before. Apologies, demands, warnings. We didn’t read them aloud again. There was nothing new in the words themselves, only in the fact that she had kept them.
She stopped at a message and tipped the screen toward Marcy.
“Can you read that one?”
Marcy leaned closer. “ ‘You know where to meet me. We can settle this before the showcase.’ ”
Our daughter’s jaw tightened.
“That’s the one,” she said.
I looked at the message, then at her. “Is the old weigh-in room where the showcase comes in?”
She drew a careful breath. “It’s behind the cage. Dustin used to take me through there when the gym was closed.”
The room seemed to shrink around us.
“Wade met him there,” she added. “More than once. I saw him go in.”
She didn’t say what she’d seen or heard. I didn’t ask.
At the doorway, a shadow shifted. Dana Ruiz was still in the hall, waiting where she’d been since we arrived. I could see the edge of her notebook in one hand.
I looked back at my daughter.
“Would you like me to ask Dana in?”
She glanced at the open door. Then she nodded.
“Just for this.”
I went to the doorway and waved Dana over. She entered without looking at the phone.
“Thank you for letting me join you,” she said. “You can stop whenever you want.”
My daughter kept the screen in her own hands.
“Dustin wants me to meet him at the old weigh-in room tonight. He says we can settle things before the showcase.”
Dana’s expression changed, but only slightly. She pulled a chair closer and sat down, leaving space between herself and the bed.
“Do you know whether he means the public showcase at the gym?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to show me the message?”
My daughter turned the screen toward her. Dana read it, then returned her attention to my daughter—not the phone.
“Thank you. I won’t ask you to explain anything else right now.”
The restraint in Dana’s voice didn’t ease the tightness in my chest, but it did keep me from filling the silence with questions.
A reminder flashed at the top of the thread. My daughter tapped it away.
“There’s another one,” she said. “He keeps bringing up the showcase.”
She scrolled, stopped, and read silently. Then she placed the phone on the blanket.
I wanted to ask what the message said. I wanted to know every word Dustin had sent, every place Wade had stood, every reason my daughter was afraid. But wanting to know did not make the answers mine to take.
“Do you want to tell Dana what you saw?” I asked.
My daughter looked at me. “I already told her.”
“I mean more than that.”
“I know.” She pressed two fingers against the blanket. “I don’t want to go through it now.”
“Then we won’t.”
Dana gave a small nod. She didn’t reach for her notebook.
I turned to her. “Does the showcase connect to your investigation?”
Dana’s eyes flicked toward the phone, then back to me. “Yes. I’ve been looking into Wade’s activity for months. The showcase gives him a reason to make sure certain things don’t survive.”
“What things?” Marcy asked.
Dana paused.
“I can’t tell you what I haven’t verified. And I don’t want to turn your daughter’s messages into more than they show. But the timing matters.”
Our daughter’s fingers curled around the edge of the blanket. “How soon?”
“Soon,” Dana said. “The event is close enough that we have a narrow window.”
I saw the effect of those words. My daughter looked toward the dark window, where the glass reflected our family back at us: Marcy beside her, Dana in the chair, me standing stiffly near the door.
“What happens if he goes there tonight?” she asked.
Dana didn’t answer for her. “You don’t have to meet him to help me understand what that message means.”
My daughter’s eyes lowered to the phone. “I’m not going.”
The words came out quiet but certain. A tremor followed them, visible in the hand she tucked beneath the blanket.
Marcy reached for her wrist, then stopped. Our daughter brought her hand out and laid it in Marcy’s.
I had spent years learning how to move when a threat appeared in front of me. None of that training had prepared me for the patience it took to stay still while my daughter chose her own next step.
Dana rose from her chair. “I’ll look into what can be preserved. I won’t use your messages or your account without your permission.”
“Not yet,” my daughter said.
“Understood.”
Dana’s phone buzzed. She read the screen, and the careful calm in her face tightened.
“What is it?” I asked.
She glanced at my daughter before answering. “The showcase changes the timeline.”
“How?”
“Wade may clear the gym before it opens. If there are records there, ordinary requests may not reach them in time.”
My daughter’s fingers closed around Marcy’s.
May you like
Dana put her phone away.
“The records may be gone before investigators can reach them through ordinary channels.”
