Chapter 13
“Ruby’s safe,” Price said. “She’s with Tasha, at the staging point. He can’t get to her.”
Eric’s shout still seemed to vibrate through the rain. I pressed both hands against my ribs, trying to hold myself together long enough to answer.
“Then he doesn’t know where she is.”
“He may be trying to make you think he does.” Price watched the dark house. “Stay behind the line. Tell me what could help them find Vanessa.”
I looked toward Ruby’s bedroom window. The glass was black, but I could see the pale curtain I’d chosen years ago, before Ruby was born. Vanessa had stood behind it once, visible for only a breath. Her hand had moved against the glass.
Two fingers. Then a fist.
The signal she and I had used as girls when one of us needed the other to know she was there.
“She’s in the nursery,” I said. “Or she was. The window faces the side yard. The hall closet is right beside the bedroom door—there’s a narrow gap behind the coats. If she’s hiding, she might have gone there.”
Price repeated it into his radio. A fire captain answered, his voice blurred by static.
“Tell them not to use the basement entrance,” I said. “The outside door sticks, and the stairs drop straight toward the furnace room. If Eric tampered with the system, that’s the wrong way in.”
Price relayed that too. I hated how calmly I could describe every path through the house, as if it were still mine to guide someone through. The front hall. The short passage to the nursery. The floorboard that squeaked outside Ruby’s room.
A radio crackled.
“Interior team has eyes on the nursery. Moving to the closet.”
I gripped the edge of the cruiser door. Price didn’t tell me to wait patiently. He stood beside me, listening with his whole face.
A loud crash came from the far side of the house.
“Rear exit!” someone shouted.
The next burst of radio noise swallowed the rest. Then came the slam of a door and the scrape of running feet on wet ground.
Price turned toward the back of the house. Officers stationed beyond the side yard moved at once, their flashlights cutting across the fence and the dripping branches.
A man appeared at the rear corner.
Eric.
He was coatless, hair flattened with rain, one hand braced against the siding. For a split second he looked toward the street. Then he saw the officers.
“Don’t move!” someone yelled.
Eric bolted toward the gap between the garage and the fence.
An officer caught him just past the corner. They went down hard in the wet grass. Eric twisted, cursing, trying to wrench one arm free. Another officer pinned his shoulder while a third pulled his hands behind him.
I couldn’t hear what they said. I could hear Eric.
“Vanessa did it!” he shouted. “She arranged the whole thing!”
My body leaned toward him before I understood I’d moved. Price stepped between us—not to restrain me, just to keep me on the safe side of the line.
A second radio call broke through.
“Victim located. Female, conscious. Bringing her out the front.”
I stopped breathing.
The front door opened. Two responders emerged with Vanessa between them, a blanket around her shoulders. Her face was pale, her hair tangled against one cheek. She looked straight at me.
I took one step, then stopped when the captain lifted a hand. The responders carried her beyond the porch and into the clear space where the ambulance waited.
Vanessa held my gaze until they guided her inside.
Only then did I let the breath out.
Price came close enough for me to hear him over the rain. “She’s alive.”
I nodded, but the word felt too small for the fear it had to contain.
Across the yard, an officer was reading Eric his rights. Eric’s eyes found me over his shoulder.
“Tell them she knew,” he called. “She handled the paperwork. She made the calls. You know she did.”
I did know. I knew Vanessa had helped him. I knew she had let his lies sound reasonable because she wanted to believe her brother was only desperate, not dangerous.
And I knew she had gone back into the house when she could have run.
“The recordings are safe,” I said.
Eric’s expression changed. The anger stayed, but something underneath it faltered.
“Those recordings don’t prove anything.”
“They prove what you said.” Price’s voice was even. “They’re backed up. Cal’s statement is on record. And the key he dropped matches the workshop where your car was found.”
Eric glanced toward Price. For the first time, he seemed to understand there was no quick sentence that could put the morning back together in his favor.
Then his gaze returned to me.
“You’re letting her get away with it.”
“No,” I said. My voice shook, but I didn’t take it back. “I’m letting her answer for what she did. You don’t get to answer for her.”
An officer opened the cruiser door. Eric turned his head as they guided him toward it, still talking, still trying to make his story the only one anyone could hear.
The door closed.
The sound was small, almost ordinary.
My knees weakened. Price touched my elbow, and this time I leaned into the support. Behind him, rain fell steadily over the house, silvering the windows, hiding the damage inside.
At the staging point down the block, Tasha stood beside her car. Ruby was tucked beneath her coat, clutching the blue sketchbook against her chest. When she spotted me, she broke away and ran.
I dropped to my knees and caught her. Her arms locked around my neck. I pressed my cheek to her hair and felt her trembling against me.
“Is Aunt Vanessa okay?” she whispered.
“She’s alive. They’re taking care of her.”
May you like
Ruby drew back enough to study my face. Then she looked past me, toward the house at the end of the block.
“Do we have to go back to the old house?”
