Chapter 9 - THE GIRL IN THE BLUE DRESS
Emma was asleep when Rachel reached the secure apartment.
Two officers stood outside. Another checked every window and door. Joanna remained in contact with the state team searching for Lily.
Rachel sat beside Emma’s bed and tried not to imagine Vanessa’s hands pulling Lily into a car.
At 2:13 a.m., Emma awoke.
“Where’s Lily?”
Rachel hesitated.
“She’s not with her foster family right now.”
“Her mommy took her.”
“We don’t know.”
Emma sat up slowly.
“Her mommy said she would.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Rachel leaned closer.
“Vanessa spoke to Lily yesterday?”
“Before breakfast. She told her to wear the blue dress because someone was coming to get her.”
“What blue dress?”
“The one with white buttons.”
Rachel called Reed immediately.
Police reviewed footage from the Ashford estate. At 7:55 on the morning of the attack, Vanessa entered Lily’s room carrying a blue dress. The camera outside the room had no audio, but Lily’s statement now suggested Vanessa had expected someone to remove her daughter.
The attack on Emma might not have been an uncontrolled outburst.
It might have been part of a plan.
Vanessa had known authorities were closing in. She had sent messages admitting the prior assault. She had made no attempt to delete them. She threw the pan in full view of the family.
Perhaps she had wanted to be arrested.
Perhaps the transfer ambush had been arranged in advance.
“Why hurt Emma?” Rachel asked when Reed arrived.
“To create chaos,” he said. “To draw attention to the house while something else was moved.”
“The hidden phone?”
“Or evidence from the basement.”
Rachel remembered Charles locking the kitchen door.
“Nobody leaves until we decide what everyone is going to say.”
Had he been trying to protect Vanessa?
Or delaying the police while someone escaped through another part of the estate?
Reed spread several photographs across the table.
“These are traffic cameras from the transport ambush.”
A black SUV had stopped near the overturned police vehicle. Vanessa climbed inside.
The driver’s face was hidden.
A second person sat in the rear seat.
Lily, wearing a blue dress with white buttons.
“She was already in the SUV?” Rachel asked.
“It appears so.”
“Then Vanessa’s people took her before the transport crash.”
“Yes.”
“Why bring Lily to the ambush?”
“Maybe Vanessa refused to leave without her.”
Rachel stared at the image.
Lily’s face was visible through the rear window.
She was not crying.
She was looking directly at the camera while holding up three fingers.
“What does that mean?” Reed asked.
Rachel enlarged the photograph.
Lily’s index, middle, and ring fingers were raised.
A signal.
During family vacations, Rachel taught the girls simple emergency games. One finger meant stay. Two meant run. Three meant remember the vehicle.
“She’s telling us to look at the car.”
Reed called the technical team.
The license plate was false, but a tiny emblem appeared near the rear light: a silver falcon.
Rachel recognized it from Victor Hale’s private security company.
Falcon Strategic Consulting.
The company supposedly closed after his death.
Reed searched old business records. Falcon had once leased a warehouse near Port Mason, forty miles north.
Police teams mobilized.
Rachel remained with Emma, but every part of her wanted to go.
At dawn, Reed called.
The warehouse was empty.
Yet they found Lily’s blue dress folded on a chair.
Beside it sat a voice recorder.
Lily’s trembling voice played through the speaker.
“Aunt Rachel, Mommy says you found the card. She says Grandpa will give Emma back when you bring it.”
Emma was already safe.
Rachel looked toward the bedroom.
Then another voice emerged from the recording.
Vanessa.
“You have until noon to bring me the original memory card. No police. No copies. If you fail, your other niece will learn what happens to disobedient girls.”
Rachel gripped the table.
A final sound followed.
A woman whispering in the background.
“Rachel, don’t bring it.”
May you like
Caroline.
Alive.
