Chapter 10 - The Lie He Told the House
I could hear them moving above me, shoes on marble, and I kept my breathing shallow so I could catch every word. The man in the black suit had not left the hatch. His shadow cut across the light every time he shifted his weight.
Mia was still close to him. I could hear her bare feet slapping when she got nervous and moved.
He kept his voice low. "Mia," he said. "When did you last see your mom?"
There was a pause. I pictured her twisting the hem of that beige dress.
"Three sleeps," she whispered.
"And what did Nathan tell you?" he asked. "Where did he say she went?"
That was the first scene I remember holding my breath for. Because I knew what he had told people before.
Mia answered like she had memorized it. "He said she went to visit family."
The words landed hard in my chest. I had no family within four hundred miles. My mother had died when Mia was two. I had told Nathan that myself in our apartment kitchen, over cold coffee.
Above me, the suited man did not react right away. I heard him exhale through his nose. "Visit family," he repeated. "Did he say when she'd be back?"
"No," Mia said. "He said don't cry about it."
I pressed my bound wrists against the stone to keep from making a sound. Thick rope burned against skin that was already raw.
Footsteps came from the staircase side then. The other man, the one who had stood by the stairs like furniture, moved closer. I recognized the rhythm of someone trying to sound casual.
The suited man spoke up. "You work here?"
A short laugh. "I help Mr. Nathan out."
"Then you heard the same thing? That she left?"
"Yeah," the observer said quickly. Too quickly. "She went to visit family. Packed a bag. Left Tuesday morning."
I closed my eyes in the dark. Tuesday morning. I had never packed a bag. Tuesday morning I had been waiting in the school pickup line at 2:45 in our old Honda, engine ticking, watching for Mia's blonde ponytail to come out door three. I remembered checking the clock on the dash. I remembered the crossing guard waving me forward because Mia never came.
The school office had called me, not the other way around. They said Mia had been signed out early. By Nathan. I had driven back to the house with my hands shaking on the wheel, and the front door was locked from the inside, and the back door was locked too.
That was what I needed them to know.
I forced my voice up through the crack in the hatch. It came out rough and small. "Mia—"
The suited man knelt at once. I heard his knee hit the floor. "Easy," he murmured, half to me, half to her. "Talk slow."
I swallowed. My throat felt full of dust. "I didn't visit anyone. I was at her school Tuesday. For pickup. I never left town."
Silence stretched. Then Mia made a confused sound. "But Mr.—"
The suited man cut in gently, "Hold on, honey. Look at me. Did you go to school Tuesday?"
"Yes," she said. "Nathan picked me. He said you weren't coming."
I wanted to reach up through that narrow opening. My fingers curled uselessly in the rope.
"Listen to me," I said, louder this time, and the observer shifted back a step. I heard it. "Ask the school. Room four. Miss Delgado. I called at three o'clock asking where she was. They'll have the log."
The suited man was quiet for a long moment. I could hear him thinking, fitting the pieces together. When he spoke again, his tone had changed. Colder. Aimed not at Mia but at the other man.
"You said Tuesday morning. Packed a bag," he said. "Her kid was picked up early that same afternoon by Nathan, and the mother called the school looking for her. How does that add up?"
The observer did not answer. Shoes scraped on marble.
"That's the same line," the suited man said, almost to himself. "Word for word. Visit family. You both used it."
May you like
I lay back against the stone wall, heart hammering so loud I thought they'd hear it through the floor. Above me, Mia started to cry again, quiet this time, leaning into the suited man's side.
He kept his hand on the edge of the hatch, guarding it, and I understood he had just written it all down in his head. The coordinated story. The missing pickup. The locked doors. It wasn't just Nathan anymore.
