Chapter 15 - THE EMPTY BED
Police placed officers outside our home.
Emma’s school moved her classes online.
Every door remained locked.
Every curtain stayed closed.
Rachel had no money, phone, or vehicle that investigators knew about.
That did not make her less dangerous.
She had spent months preparing.
Mark believed she had hidden resources.
I believed she would come for Emma.
Two nights after her escape, the alarm sounded at 3:17 a.m.
I ran into Emma’s room.
Her bed was empty.
The window was open.
For one second, my mind stopped working.
Then I heard water running in the bathroom.
Emma stepped into the hallway holding her stuffed rabbit.
“Mommy?”
I collapsed against the wall.
The open window had been a warning.
Someone had entered the room but left without taking her.
On Emma’s pillow was a photograph.
It showed me lying in a hospital bed after giving birth.
Rachel stood beside me holding newborn Emma.
Someone had written across the bottom.
“You were only carrying her for me.”
Mark checked the security cameras.
The system had been disabled for seven minutes.
The person entered using an old emergency code.
Only four people had ever known it.
Mark.
Me.
My father.
And my mother.
My father was in custody.
My mother claimed she was at home.
Police tracked her car.
It had traveled within two blocks of our house at 3:05 a.m.
Mom denied driving it.
She said Rachel had taken a spare key months earlier.
Detective Hayes did not believe her.
Neither did I.
Mom was arrested for helping Rachel escape after officers found clothing and cash missing from her home.
Under questioning, she admitted meeting Rachel after the transport crash.
She gave her money.
She claimed she begged Rachel to surrender.
Rachel refused.
“Where is she?” I asked.
Mom stared through the interview-room glass.
“She said she was going to the place where Emma was supposed to grow up.”
I understood before anyone else did.
Our parents had owned a cabin near Lake Juniper when we were children.
Rachel loved it there.
She once said she would raise her own family beside that lake.
The property had been sold years earlier.
At least, that was what my father told us.
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Property records showed it still belonged to a shell company controlled by Thomas Vale’s former law firm.
Rachel had been hiding there all along.
