Chapter 3 - Messages From My Own Number
The messages looked real.
That was the worst part.
My name appeared at the top. My phone number sat beneath it. The language sounded enough like me to hurt.
I can’t do this anymore.
You make everything harder.
Emma needs stability.
Maybe disappearing is the kindest thing you can do.
I read them twice, then pushed the phone away.
“I did not send these.”
Ortiz nodded. “We believe you.”
Claire looked at her. “Why?”
“Because the carrier records don’t match.”
Ortiz explained that the messages on Claire’s device had been inserted through a cloned backup. Someone had duplicated parts of my account and loaded fabricated texts onto her phone.
That required access.
Not just to our numbers.
To our passwords.
My mind went straight to Vanessa.
She had helped us set up the family cloud account years earlier because she was “good with tech.”
Claire whispered, “She knew everything.”
Ortiz’s expression hardened. “Apparently.”
Then she showed us something else.
The day Claire vanished, her phone had sent me a final message: I need space. Don’t look for me.
I remembered it word for word.
I had stared at that message for three nights without sleeping.
Carrier records now showed it had not been sent from Claire’s phone at all.
It had been sent through a web portal from the restaurant’s office computer.
Vanessa’s office.
My chest tightened.
Emma, who had been drawing quietly, looked up.
“I told you Mommy wouldn’t leave.”
I looked at my daughter and felt shame burn through me.
“You did.”
She had told me every night.
And every night, I had tried to soften what I thought was abandonment into something a child could survive.
Ortiz’s phone rang.
She stepped into the hall, then returned less than a minute later.
“Lucas Reed’s apartment is empty.”
“Gone?” I asked.
“Looks that way.”
She set another evidence photo on the table.
Officers had found a packed suitcase in Lucas’s bedroom, cash in a kitchen drawer, and a one-way train ticket purchased that morning.
But the ticket was not in Lucas’s name.
It was in mine.
Claire stared at me.
Ortiz said, “Somebody is still trying to build a story around you.”
Then my phone buzzed.
May you like
A text from an unknown number.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HER STAY MISSING.
