Chapter 6 - the grandmother at the end of the street)
Diana made it six blocks.
Laura's husband had immediately called police.
A patrol officer spotted Diana's black SUV at a traffic light less than four minutes later.
Emma was sitting in the back seat.
No car seat.
No shoes.
When police ordered Diana out of the vehicle, she began shouting that Emma belonged with family.
David arrived moments after officers blocked the road.
He saw Emma through the rear window.
Her palms pressed against the glass.
"Daddy!"
David tried to run toward her.
Ruiz caught him.
"Let them handle it."
"That's my daughter."
"I know."
Diana stood beside the SUV with her hands visible.
She wasn't crying.
She looked furious.
"You don't understand what he's doing," she told the officers.
One officer opened the back door.
Emma scrambled out.
David knelt.
This time nobody stopped him.
She ran directly into his arms.
"I told her no."
"You did good."
"She said we were going somewhere safe."
"You are safe."
Emma buried her face against him.
Across the road, Diana stared.
"David."
He ignored her.
"David, listen to me."
Ruiz stepped between them.
"Mrs. Mercer, you need to stop talking."
Diana laughed.
"This is ridiculous."
"You removed a child from an approved temporary placement without authorization."
"I'm her grandmother."
"You were specifically told not to contact her."
Diana's expression shifted.
"I was protecting her."
"From what?"
Diana looked at David.
"From him."
David stood while holding Emma.
"What did I ever do to you?"
For the first time, Diana looked hurt.
Almost genuinely.
"I gave you everything."
"Then why are you trying to take my daughter?"
"You were going to ruin it."
"Ruin what?"
Diana's eyes moved toward Ruiz.
She stopped speaking.
Ruiz noticed.
"So there is something."
Diana turned away.
Police placed her in a patrol car.
She was not charged immediately with kidnapping because the legal boundaries surrounding temporary kinship placement were complicated.
But the violation destroyed the image of calm concern she had carefully built.
By evening, the court issued an emergency no contact order.
Diana could not approach Emma.
She could not visit David's home.
She could not contact Laura.
David still wasn't cleared to take Emma home.
But Diana's petition for emergency guardianship was suspended.
A small victory.
Not enough.
That night, David sat in Laura's kitchen while Emma slept upstairs.
Ruiz joined him.
"We identified the gray sedan."
David leaned forward.
"Who owns it?"
"A company called Easton Property Services."
"Never heard of it."
"Neither had I."
"Who drove it?"
"We're working on that."
Ruiz placed a photograph on the table.
It showed a middle aged man leaving a gas station.
Baseball cap.
Gray jacket.
David stared.
"Know him?"
"No."
Laura walked closer.
Then stopped.
"I do."
David turned.
"Who?"
Laura picked up the photograph.
"I've seen him with Mom."
"Where?"
"At Dad's funeral."
"That was four years ago."
"I remember because I asked who he was. Mom said he was an old business associate."
Ruiz opened his notebook.
"Name?"
"I don't know."
"Anything else?"
Laura stared at the photograph.
"He came to Claire's funeral too."
David looked at her.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Ruiz leaned forward.
"Where was he?"
"Near the parking lot. He never came inside."
David suddenly remembered a man standing beneath a tree during Claire's burial.
He had assumed the stranger was someone from her work.
"Find him," David said.
"We will."
Ruiz then placed another paper on the table.
"We also received the complete metadata from the anonymous child services photographs."
David's pulse quickened.
"And?"
"They were taken with Diana's phone."
Laura covered her mouth.
David felt strangely calm.
"Can she still deny it?"
"She can deny sending them. But someone copied photographs from her phone and submitted them."
"She took pictures of Emma at my window while she was supposed to be watching her."
"Yes."
"Did she create those situations?"
"We can't prove that yet."
David stared at the photograph of the stranger.
"She didn't do this alone."
Ruiz nodded.
"I agree."
Then Emma appeared at the top of the stairs.
She held the banister with one hand and her stuffed rabbit with the other.
"Daddy?"
David stood.
"What are you doing awake?"
"I had the dream."
He climbed the stairs and carried her back to bed.
Laura followed but remained at the doorway.
David tucked Emma beneath the blanket.
"What dream?"
"The kennel."
David brushed hair from her forehead.
"You aren't going back there."
Emma looked toward Laura.
Then whispered.
"Grandma wasn't alone."
David stopped.
"What do you mean?"
Laura stepped inside.
Emma squeezed her rabbit.
"The man."
"What man, sweetheart?"
"The man who fixed the camera."
David and Laura exchanged a look.
"Did you see him?"
Emma nodded.
"What did he look like?"
"He had a hat."
David carefully showed her the photograph Ruiz had left downstairs after getting permission to bring it up.
Emma pointed immediately.
"Him."
David's stomach tightened.
"What did he do?"
"He talked to Grandma."
"About what?"
Emma's voice became quieter.
"She said it had to look real."
David felt every muscle in his body tighten.
"What had to look real?"
Emma shook her head.
"I don't know."
Then she looked toward the hallway as though someone might be listening.
"The man gave Grandma a paper."
"What paper?"
"The one with Mommy's picture."
David stopped breathing.
"Your mommy?"
Emma nodded.
"Grandma put it in her bag."
David's voice nearly disappeared.
"Did you hear what they said?"
Emma thought for several seconds.
Then she repeated the sentence exactly as a four year old might remember it.
"The man said, if David finds out Claire knew, none of this matters."
Laura grabbed the doorframe.
David stared at his daughter.
May you like
Claire had been dead for eighteen months.
Yet somehow the conspiracy surrounding Emma still depended on what Claire had known.
