Chapter 7 - THE THREAT AT HOMEI hit Madison.
Or I would have.
Torres caught my arm before I reached her.
“Daniel!”
Madison laughed as officers pulled her away.
The sound followed me up the stairs, through the hallway, and out into the burning evening.
For now.
Two words.
Two words were enough to turn my bones into ice.
My daughter, Sophie, was seven years old. She lived with my ex-wife, Allison, in Mesa during the week and stayed with me every other weekend. She had a gap between her front teeth, a purple backpack covered in unicorn stickers, and a habit of calling every dog she saw “sir.”
For now.
I pulled out my phone with hands that barely worked.
Allison answered on the fourth ring.
“What, Daniel?”
“Where’s Sophie?”
A pause.
“What?”
“Where is she right now?”
“At home. Why?”
“Check.”
“Daniel, I’m making dinner.”
“Check now.”
Something in my voice must have reached her because I heard the phone shift, footsteps, a door opening.
“Sophie?” Allison called. “Honey?”
Silence.
Then: “She was in her room.”
My throat closed.
“Allison.”
“She was just here.”
“Lock the doors.”
“What is going on?”
“Lock the doors and call 911.”
A small voice came faintly through the phone.
“Mom?”
Allison gasped.
“Oh my God. Sophie, why are you in the pantry?”
My knees weakened so badly I had to put a hand on Torres’s truck.
Sophie came on the line crying.
“Daddy?”
I closed my eyes.
“I’m here, peanut. Are you okay?”
“There was a man at the window.”
The world went quiet.
“What man?”
“I don’t know. He smiled at me.”
Torres was beside me now, listening.
“Where are you?” she asked sharply.
I gave her Allison’s address.
She radioed for Mesa PD while I stayed on the phone, telling Sophie to stay with her mother, telling Allison to get away from windows, telling myself not to imagine Marcus Vane’s men standing outside my child’s bedroom.
When the call ended, I could barely breathe.
Torres’s expression had softened, but only slightly.
“He’s pressuring you.”
“No. He’s threatening my daughter.”
“That’s what pressure looks like when men like Marcus Vane apply it.”
I looked toward the Safe Harbor building. Children were being loaded into ambulances. Madison sat handcuffed in the back of a cruiser, her face turned toward me like she was watching a show.
“How did he know about Sophie?”
Torres hesitated.
I saw it.
“What?”
“Vane Development had a contract with your company.”
“So?”
“So did Family Court Services.”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means if someone had access to contractor records, custody filings, addresses, emergency contacts…”
“They could find my daughter.”
Torres nodded once.
I wanted to be sick.
Pike came out of the building holding a banker’s box.
“We’ve got transfer logs,” he said. “Some encrypted. Some paper.”
“How many?” Torres asked.
Pike looked at me, then back at her.
“More than twenty-six.”
Torres took the box.
“Where is Marcus?”
“Gone from the supermarket before backup arrived. Lawyer says he’s at home and available for questioning tomorrow.”
Torres’s face hardened.
“He’s running.”
Pike nodded.
“Or cleaning.”
At County Medical, Rachel was informed that nine children had been found alive. She cried for strangers’ children with the same broken relief she had cried for her own.
Liam was awake when I returned.
Barely.
His fever had dropped, but his eyes were glassy.
I stood in the doorway, unsure whether I belonged there.
He saw me anyway.
“Window man.”
I smiled despite everything.
“Daniel.”
“Danny,” he whispered.
“Close enough.”
Rachel sat beside him, holding Ava against her chest. The baby slept with tiny hospital monitors attached to her foot, unaware that her brother had become a hero before kindergarten.
Liam looked at Rachel.
“Did Caleb call?”
Rachel looked at me.
“He did,” I said. “We found him.”
Liam’s eyes filled.
“And the others?”
“Nine kids are safe.”
He blinked slowly.
“Nine were there.”
My chest tightened.
“How do you know?”
“Because Madison said the rest went to the ranch.”
Rachel went still.
Torres, standing behind me, stepped into the room.
“What ranch, Liam?”
May you like
His eyes shut.
“The place where moms don’t find you.”
