Chapter 2
The dispatcher kept me on the line until a uniformed officer appeared between the parked cars, one hand raised so I wouldn’t mistake him for someone coming toward us. A second officer followed, then a broad-shouldered man in a dark coat who introduced himself as Sergeant Price.
“Is the child hurt?”
“No,” I said. “She’s scared.”
Ruby sat very straight beside me, both hands wrapped around the strap of her backpack. The parking lot smelled of cold asphalt and jet fuel, and the airport kept breathing people into the morning behind us—families with rolling suitcases, travelers glancing at their phones, everyone moving as if the day were ordinary.
Price crouched beside the open car door, lowering his voice to Ruby’s level.
“I’m going to ask you something about the camera, okay? You can tell me if you need a break.”
Ruby looked at me first. I nodded, though my stomach tightened at the sight of her being asked to help explain the nightmare.
Price turned his attention to me. “Show me what you saw.”
My fingers felt clumsy as I opened the security app. The nursery feed was still a black rectangle. I pulled up the saved alerts and the clip from the basement entrance, replaying the moment the work-jacketed man stepped inside and the second figure followed.
Price watched without speaking. Beside me, Ruby leaned forward.
“That’s him,” she said.
Price paused the clip. “Which one?”
“The one behind the man in the jacket.” She pointed without touching the screen. “He was driving the gray SUV.”
“You saw him inside the house?”
Ruby’s shoulders rose toward her ears. “On the camera. He went in after the first man.”
Price looked to me, not Ruby. “She’s sure?”
“I saw it too,” I said. “She’s telling you what she saw.”
He asked me to keep the phone awake, then took a quick recording of the clip on his own device. He didn’t demand an explanation from Ruby or make her watch it again. That small mercy made me want to thank him, but my mouth had gone dry.
An officer near the next row of cars spoke into his radio. Price listened, face still, then stood.
“Units are being sent to your home now,” he said. “Fire personnel, too. You did the right thing staying here.”
The words should have steadied me. Instead, they made the distance between the airport and our house feel like a taut wire somebody had begun plucking.
My phone rang.
Eric’s name glowed on the screen.
Ruby saw it and reached for my hand. I pressed her fingers between mine, then answered.
“Hey,” Eric said, bright and easy, with the distant murmur of an airport behind him. “You guys on your way?”
Price’s eyes met mine. He didn’t gesture or interrupt. He only watched, giving me room to choose what kind of lie might keep us safe.
“Almost,” I said. “We’re still driving home.”
The words scraped on the way out. Ruby stared at me, her face open with the awful question of whether I meant them.
“Good,” Eric said. “I’m getting settled here. It’s a little chaotic at the gate, but we should be moving soon.”
I looked past Price at the glass entrance, where people streamed in and out. I could see neither Eric nor the gray SUV, but I couldn’t stop picturing him somewhere nearby, listening for the truth in my voice.
“Did you remember the heat?” he asked. “The house was freezing.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Great. You know how miserable Ruby gets when she’s cold.”
Ruby’s grip tightened. I turned slightly away from her, as if that could shield her from his voice.
“She’s fine,” I said.
There was a brief pause. Then Eric chuckled softly. “You sound tired. Long morning?”
I could have shouted his name into the phone, demanded to know who was in our house and why he had lied about the trip. Instead, I held on to the ordinary tone he had offered me like a ledge above deep water.
“Just a lot going on.”
“Well, get home and warm up. I’ll call when I land.”
“All right.”
“I love you.”
The words landed with the weight of something familiar turned suddenly strange. I couldn’t look at Ruby. I couldn’t look at Price.
“Bye, Eric.”
When the call ended, I lowered the phone. My hand was trembling so badly the screen rattled against my ring.
Price waited a beat. “He thinks you’re going home?”
“He thinks we’re still driving there.”
I had meant to protect Ruby with the lie. Now she was sitting beside me, listening to me help her father keep believing we were headed toward the danger he had arranged. The hurt in her eyes was quiet, and it found a place in me no siren could reach.
I leaned toward her. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
“You said we were safe with you,” she whispered.
“We are.” I squeezed her hand. “I’m not going to let him know where we are.”
She nodded, but she didn’t lean into me. I understood. A promise could be true and still not feel like comfort.
Price’s radio crackled. He turned away to answer, then came back with his jaw set.
“Fire crews are at the house,” he said. “They’ve found a problem with the heating system.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“They’re treating it as dangerous. They don’t want anyone going inside—not you, not the officers, nobody—until the fire crew says it’s safe.”
The airport noise seemed to recede. I heard only the rush of blood in my ears and the faint scrape of Ruby’s shoe against the floor mat.
“Was someone still in there?” I asked.
“We’re checking. The immediate instruction is to stay out.”
“Can you tell what happened?”
“Not yet.” His voice was careful, but not dismissive. “They’re looking at signs that the system may have been tampered with. I don’t want to guess beyond that.”
Ruby stared at the backpack in her lap. A loose thread curled beneath her thumbnail. I wanted to take the bag from her, to make her small hands hold something other than evidence and fear, but I didn’t know how to make the morning gentler without pretending it wasn’t happening.
Price glanced toward the other officer, who was speaking with airport security near the row. “I need you both somewhere warm and away from the terminal doors. We’ll arrange that. Don’t go back to the house, even if Eric calls and tells you it’s fine.”
“He’ll say that?”
“I don’t know what he’ll say.” Price’s expression softened, but his attention stayed sharp. “I’m telling you what we know right now.”
The radio crackled again. One of the officers stepped closer and spoke quietly to him. Price listened, then asked him to repeat something. Whatever he heard made his gaze return to my phone.
“Can he see the cameras?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
The security app still showed our home’s rooms as blank tiles, little windows into a place I no longer trusted. Eric had picked the keypad code, installed the system, and insisted the account needed to be shared so we could both check on Ruby. I had agreed because it seemed sensible. Because marriage had taught me to call certain kinds of access trust.
Price leaned closer, lowering his voice.
“Change nothing on that account from this phone until we know more. And don’t assume the app is private.”
A cold line opened beneath my ribs.
May you like
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Eric may still have access to your family’s security account,” Price said. “He may be able to see what you see—and where you are.”
