Chapter 3 - MY WIFE WAS RUNNING FROM SOMEONE
I didn’t sleep that night.
I sat beside Lily’s hospital bed while Tommy slept under the careful watch of nurses two rooms away.
Every few minutes, I replayed the same sentence in my head.
Make you disappear.
Megan had wanted to stop.
Diane had pushed her.
My children had been placed in the middle of something I didn’t yet understand.
Around two in the morning, Detective Alvarez returned with a second detective.
They asked me to come to a small conference room.
A laptop sat on the table.
Alvarez closed the door.
“We recovered part of the security footage.”
“Show me.”
He hesitated.
“Some of it may be difficult to watch.”
“They’re my children.”
He pressed play.
The timestamp showed five days earlier.
Our kitchen.
Megan stood near the counter.
She looked completely different from the woman who had kissed me goodbye before my business trip.
Her hair was messy.
Her face was swollen from crying.
Diane stood across from her.
There was no sound at first.
Then the detective increased the audio.
“You’re finishing this,” Diane said.
Megan shook her head.
“No.”
“You don’t get to say no now.”
“My children are involved.”
“They were always involved.”
“I won’t do that to them.”
“You’ve already done worse.”
Megan covered her face.
Diane stepped closer.
“If Ethan gets custody, everything we worked for is gone.”
“He won’t.”
“He will if you lose your nerve.”
“I’m done lying.”
Diane slapped her.
I shot out of my chair.
Detective Alvarez paused the video.
“Sit down.”
“She hit her.”
“I know.”
“Keep playing.”
Megan held her cheek.
Diane leaned toward her.
“You think you can suddenly grow a conscience?”
“My kids could get hurt.”
“They’ll be uncomfortable for a few days.”
“No.”
“A few hungry nights and Ethan comes home looking like an absent father. We call child services. You cry. You say he controlled the money and abandoned you.”
Megan stared at her.
“I’m not doing it.”
Diane’s expression changed.
“You forget who paid your debts.”
“I don’t care.”
“You forget whose name is on those documents.”
“I said I’m done.”
Diane grabbed Megan by the arm.
“You walk away now, and I show Ethan everything.”
Megan laughed bitterly.
“That’s what I’m going to do.”
For the first time, Diane appeared genuinely alarmed.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I’m telling him.”
“You’ll destroy yourself.”
“Maybe.”
“And your father?”
Megan froze.
The video ended.
I stared at the black screen.
“What happened next?”
“The camera was disabled.”
“By who?”
“We don’t know.”
“But Megan left?”
“Her vehicle left the residence approximately forty minutes later.”
“What about the children?”
“Still inside.”
I closed my eyes.
Even if Megan had been threatened, there was one fact I couldn’t ignore.
She left Lily and Tommy.
She drove away.
Whatever happened between her and Diane did not erase that.
“Do you have footage of Diane coming back?”
Alvarez nodded.
The next video began.
Two days later.
Diane entered with her own key.
Lily appeared in the hallway carrying Tommy’s bottle.
“Grandma?”
Diane ignored her.
She opened cabinets.
Filled grocery bags.
Removed bread.
Fruit.
Cereal.
Formula.
Everything.
Lily followed her.
“We need that.”
Diane kept packing.
“Mommy will take care of you.”
“Mommy’s not here.”
“She’ll be back.”
“Tommy’s hungry.”
Diane turned.
For a moment, I thought she might finally act like a human being.
Instead she crouched in front of my daughter.
“You know why this is happening?”
Lily shook her head.
“Because your father cares more about work than his family.”
My fingernails dug into my palm.
Diane continued.
“When people ask, you tell them Daddy left and Mommy tried her best.”
Lily frowned.
“But Daddy comes back.”
Diane’s smile disappeared.
“Not if you tell the truth.”
She stood.
Then she walked out carrying the food.
I couldn’t watch anymore.
“Turn it off.”
The detective did.
My entire body trembled.
“That woman walked out knowing a baby had almost nothing to eat.”
“Yes.”
“Arrest her.”
“We’re working with the district attorney.”
“She’s in this building.”
“She left after questioning.”
“You let her leave?”
“At that point, we didn’t have this footage.”
I stood.
“Where is she now?”
“We don’t know.”
Of course.
They had let her walk out.
And now she knew the police were looking.
“What about Megan?”
“We traced her flight.”
I looked at him.
“She flew to Chicago.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
“Is she still there?”
“Her return ticket was for yesterday. She never boarded.”
A bad feeling settled in my chest.
“Her phone?”
“Off.”
“Credit cards?”
“No activity after she purchased the ticket.”
“Hotel?”
“No reservation in her name.”
“So she vanished.”
“That’s one possibility.”
I thought about the footage again.
Megan saying she was going to tell me everything.
Diane threatening to expose something involving Megan’s father.
“What do you know about Diane’s husband?” I asked.
“Your father-in-law?”
“Richard Mercer.”
“We’re checking.”
“He died six years ago.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Alvarez wrote something.
“Where?”
“Outside Chicago.”
The room became quiet.
Megan had flown to Chicago.
The city where her father had died.
I suddenly remembered something.
At the funeral, Diane had insisted there be no open casket.
She told everyone the accident had been too severe.
Megan barely spoke for weeks afterward.
“What if she went there because of her father?”
Alvarez nodded slowly.
“It’s possible.”
I returned to Lily.
She was awake.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here.”
“Did Grandma come back?”
“No.”
She looked relieved.
I sat beside her.
“Lily, did Mommy say anything before she left?”
My daughter thought carefully.
“She hugged me.”
“What did she say?”
“That she was sorry.”
My throat tightened.
“Anything else?”
“She told me if something happened, I should remember the song.”
“What song?”
“The bedtime one.”
Megan had sung dozens of songs.
“Which one?”
“The one about the moon.”
I knew it.
A simple song Megan’s father used to sing to her.
I sang the first line softly.
Lily shook her head.
“Not like that.”
“How?”
“She changed the words.”
My pulse picked up.
“Can you remember them?”
Lily closed her eyes.
Slowly, she began whispering.
“Moon above the willow tree,
count the steps and follow me.
Three red doors and number nine,
Daddy’s truth is under mine.”
I stared at her.
That wasn’t a bedtime song.
It was instructions.
“Did Mommy say where the willow tree is?”
“No.”
“Did she say what number nine means?”
“No.”
Then Lily suddenly reached for her hospital wristband.
“She gave me something.”
“What?”
“Before she left.”
“Where is it?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“In my shoe.”
The shoes she had worn when paramedics brought her in were inside a plastic belongings bag.
I grabbed them.
Nothing in the first shoe.
In the second, beneath the removable insole, was a tiny key.
Brass.
A number engraved into it.
I called Detective Alvarez immediately.
Within an hour, we discovered what the number meant.
A bank in Chicago had safe-deposit boxes requiring private keys.
Megan had rented box 317 eighteen months earlier.
The same period when the locked room appeared in our house.
The bank opened at nine.
The police began working on a warrant.
By morning, Tommy’s condition had improved enough that doctors said he was out of immediate danger.
I finally let myself cry.
Not loudly.
I simply stood beside his crib, rested my forehead against the rail, and felt tears slide down my face.
“I’m sorry, buddy.”
His tiny hand moved.
His fingers wrapped weakly around mine.
“I should have known.”
I thought about every business trip.
Every time Megan told me not to call because the children were sleeping.
Every photograph in the room.
Every lie.
Then my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A text message.
I opened it.
A photograph filled my screen.
Megan.
She was sitting on a floor in an unfamiliar room.
Her wrists appeared tied in front of her.
There was dried blood near her temple.
Beneath the photo was one sentence.
STOP LOOKING INTO RICHARD MERCER’S DEATH.
Another message arrived.
THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING.
I immediately called Detective Alvarez.
Then a third message appeared.
This one contained a live video.
For three seconds, Megan looked toward the camera.
Terrified.
Then a man’s voice spoke from behind it.
“Tell your husband.”
Megan swallowed.
Her voice shook.
“Ethan… please.”
The man said, “Tell him what happens if he opens the box.”
Megan began crying.
“If you open box 317…”
She stopped.
Someone struck the wall beside her.
She flinched.
“Say it.”
Megan looked directly into the camera.
“If you open that box, my mother will have Lily killed.”
The video ended.
I stared at my sleeping daughter.
Then Detective Alvarez took the phone from my hand.
“We need to trace this.”
I barely heard him.
Because another message had just arrived.
A photograph of Lily leaving preschool two weeks earlier.
Taken from across the street.
Someone had been watching her long before I came home.
May you like
And at the bottom of the photograph were four words.
WE CAN REACH HER ANYTIME.
