Chapter 11
The cruiser pulled away from the curb, taking turns I didn’t recognize. Ruby sat beside me in the back, her sketchbook hugged to her chest. Each time the tires crossed a seam in the road, she flinched.
Price rode up front, his phone to his ear.
“Vanessa’s number,” he said. “The message came from her phone. Find out where it is now.”
He listened, eyes fixed on the side mirror. I kept my own phone dark in my lap, Vanessa’s words still bright in my mind: Come alone.
The house was the only place she’d named. But the message didn’t sound like her. Vanessa used too many words when she was frightened. Eric had always been good at making a threat sound like a practical suggestion.
“Price,” I said quietly. “Can they trace the number if he calls?”
“They’re trying.”
Ruby looked up at me. “Is Aunt Vanessa with Dad?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She pressed her lips together, working hard not to cry. I put my hand over hers. This time she didn’t grip me back. She just let my fingers rest there, as if she needed the weight of them to remind her we were still together.
My phone rang.
Vanessa’s name appeared on the screen.
Price turned. “Speaker. Don’t tell him where you are.”
I answered.
“Hello?”
The first thing I heard was Eric breathing. It was a small, familiar sound—the pause he used to take before telling me something he expected me to accept.
“You got my message,” he said.
Ruby went still beside me.
“Is Vanessa there?”
“She’s safe. For now.”
Price held up one finger, telling me to keep him talking. I watched his face tighten as he relayed the call’s details to the person on the other end of his phone.
“What does ‘for now’ mean?”
“It means she made this mess, and she can help me clean it up.”
The lie arrived smoothly, like a story he’d already practiced.
“Vanessa helped you with paperwork,” I said. “You told her you were in trouble.”
“She wanted the money as much as I did.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what she’s capable of.”
I stared at the dark window beside me. My reflection stared back, pale and drawn, with Ruby’s shoulder pressed against mine.
“Then tell me what she did.”
“She handled the calls. She knew Cal was coming. She knew what was going to happen at the house.”
He said it as if naming the pieces made them fit. But I had heard his voice on the recordings. I had heard him explain how he meant to make a death look accidental. I had heard him decide Vanessa would take the blame.
“You’re trying to make her the person who planned it,” I said.
“I’m telling you what happened.”
“You’re telling me what you need me to believe.”
A pause. Then his voice softened.
“You’ve always been able to tell when I was scared.”
The words touched some old, tender place before I could stop them. That was the danger of him: he knew the doors in me, and he knew how to knock.
Price glanced back at me. I understood what Eric was doing. He wasn’t just asking for the phone. He was trying to make the familiar sound of his voice feel like proof.
I pressed my thumb against the edge of my phone.
“If it’s really you,” I said, “what do I say when I can’t bring myself to come home?”
Ruby watched my face. Price went very still.
For a moment, Eric said nothing. Then: “The porch light’s on.”
My throat tightened.
“And what do you answer?”
“I know the way.”
He got it right. He even added the detail I hadn’t asked for.
“You always left that lamp burning in our first apartment,” he said. “Even when you were mad at me.”
I closed my eyes for half a breath. We’d made that phrase when we were young enough to think a shared home meant a shared kind of safety. He had kept it all these years. He had kept everything he could use.
“That proves you know the phrase,” I said. “It doesn’t prove I can trust you.”
His softness disappeared.
“Bring the phone to the house. Come alone, and I’ll let Vanessa go.”
“The phone isn’t with me.”
“Then come without it.”
Price leaned toward the console, listening to his phone. His jaw shifted, but he didn’t interrupt.
“You want me at the house,” I said. “Why?”
“Because it’s where this started.”
“No. It started when you decided you could sign my name into a lie and call it our future.”
Ruby’s eyes widened at the word sign. I wished she didn’t have to hear any of this. But I wouldn’t pretend for Eric’s convenience.
“You signed those forms,” he said. “You knew what you were signing.”
“I knew what you told me.”
“You never asked questions.”
“You kept the important pages away from Vanessa. You hid your phone under Ruby’s mattress. You sent Cal to our house. Don’t tell me this is about the questions I didn’t ask.”
There was another pause, longer this time.
“You’re letting her turn you against me.”
I looked at Ruby’s hand beneath mine. Small fingers, a faint ink smudge near her thumb from the sketchbook. Not evidence. Not leverage. My daughter.
“No,” I said. “I’m listening to what you did.”
“Do you know what happens to Vanessa if you don’t come?”
“I know what you want me to imagine.”
“Then imagine it.”
A sharp click sounded at his end. The call dropped.
I kept the phone at my ear for a second, listening to nothing. Ruby leaned against my side.
“Dad said Aunt Vanessa planned it,” she whispered.
“He said that.”
“Is it true?”
“No.” I pulled her close. “I heard him on the recordings. He planned to blame her.”
Ruby’s face crumpled. I held her while the cruiser rolled through unfamiliar streets, refusing to tell her it would be all right when I couldn’t promise that. Instead, I stayed there, my cheek against her hair, letting her feel that I wasn’t going anywhere.
Price lowered his phone.
“They’re getting a location,” he said. “The signal’s moving toward your house.”
“Can they tell if Vanessa’s with him?”
“No.”
The one word landed harder than a warning. I watched the rain smear the streetlights into long, trembling lines.
Price turned back toward the windshield. “We’re not going there until we know what we’re walking into.”
I nodded. The old phrase still rang in my ears, a little bridge built for two people who no longer stood on the same side.
My phone vibrated.
A security notification had appeared, though I hadn’t opened the app.
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LIVE ALERT — NURSERY.
The next line said: MOTION DETECTED.
