Chapter 10 - Sophie Disappeared
We thought finding Marcus would make us safer.
We were wrong.
Marcus was detained.
Richard’s freedom tightened.
Investigators seized records.
Mom obtained a civil protection order.
Megan and Sophie moved temporarily into my apartment.
For forty-eight hours, nothing happened.
Then Sophie disappeared.
It happened Thursday afternoon.
Megan had an orthopedic appointment.
I was working from home.
Sophie returned from school at 3:36.
I saw her drop her backpack beside the couch.
At 3:48, I went downstairs to collect a grocery delivery.
I was gone six minutes.
When I returned, the apartment door was open.
Sophie was gone.
Her backpack remained.
Her phone lay on the kitchen floor.
The balcony door was locked.
No note.
No message.
Nothing.
I called 911.
Megan arrived twelve minutes later and screamed Sophie’s name until her voice broke.
Police flooded the building.
Security footage showed Sophie leaving through the lobby at 3:51.
She walked beside a woman wearing a baseball cap.
Sophie did not appear to struggle.
The woman’s face was partially hidden.
But Mom recognized her.
“Denise.”
Richard’s sister.
We had seen her maybe five times in seventeen years.
She lived in Indiana.
Or supposedly did.
Richard was questioned immediately.
He denied involvement.
Denise’s phone was turned off.
Her address was empty.
An Amber Alert was considered, then issued once police confirmed Sophie was a minor taken without parental permission under suspicious circumstances.
Megan collapsed on my couch.
“This is my fault.”
“No.”
“I should never have let her record anything.”
“This is Richard’s fault.”
“What if he hurts her?”
I could not answer.
At 6:20, I received a text from an unknown number.
One photograph.
Sophie.
Sitting on a motel bed.
Alive.
Terrified.
Below it:
Stop talking to police.
Another message.
Return the ledger.
The ledger was evidence.
We could not return it even if we wanted.
Detective Shaw took my phone.
“Do not respond yet.”
Then another text appeared.
Claire makes the decision. Not Helen. Not Megan. Claire.
My mouth went dry.
This was directed at me.
Why?
I had never mattered to Richard as much as Megan.
Not until Dad’s box.
Then I remembered the second envelope.
The one Dad addressed to Claire and Megan.
I had read only the first page at the bank before detectives took the contents.
“What else was in Dad’s letter?”
Shaw looked at me.
“What do you mean?”
“He wrote three pages. I only read part before everything happened.”
Shaw retrieved a scanned copy.
Page two contained more about the fraud.
Page three was personal.
Dad wrote:
Claire notices things. Megan trusts people. If Richard gets close to Helen, Claire will be the one he worries about.
I stared at the sentence.
I was thirteen when Dad wrote it.
At the bottom:
There is one copy of the complete account record outside the bank. Claire knows where, though she may not remember.
“What does that mean?” Shaw asked.
I didn’t know.
Then something surfaced.
A childhood memory.
Dad and I used to go fishing at Hoover Reservoir.
He taught me to hide “treasure” inside an old tackle box.
One afternoon, he placed an envelope beneath the plastic tray and said, “Sometimes the safest place is where nobody thinks anything valuable would be.”
I had forgotten.
The tackle box had remained in our old garage.
Mom’s garage.
Richard’s garage.
My heart began pounding.
“The house.”
Shaw looked at me.
“What?”
“There might be another copy at the house.”
Richard knew.
Maybe he had searched for years.
Maybe he believed I had found it.
The phone buzzed.
You remember now, don’t you?
I stared at the message.
Someone was watching us.
Then:
Midnight. Bring it alone.
An address followed.
A motel outside Springfield.
Megan grabbed my arm.
“No.”
I looked at the photograph of Sophie.
For the first time in my life, I understood exactly why victims obeyed threats that outsiders called irrational.
Because rationality disappears when someone you love is trapped in a room you cannot reach.
But I also understood something Richard had underestimated.
I was not my mother.
May you like
I was not going alone.
And I was not bringing him what he wanted.
