Chapter 11 - The Thing Beneath My Car
I asked Lily what she meant. She looked toward the hallway to make sure Vanessa wasn't there, even though we'd told her a dozen times that Vanessa couldn't reach her.
"She said after I went to the quiet house, Daddy would go away, too. The man said he could make it look like an accident."
Elena covered her mouth. I took a slow breath and kept my voice steady.
"Did you hear where they talked?"
"In the garage. I was hiding by the washing machine."
Park was there within half an hour. She didn't ask Lily to repeat the story for a crowd. She arranged for the new information to be handled by the investigator working with the child interviewer and sent officers to secure my car.
A mechanic working with police found damage to a brake hose beneath the rear wheel. It hadn't failed yet. The technician couldn't say how much longer it would have held.
Park stood next to me outside the inspection bay.
"Someone appears to have deliberately damaged this," she said. "We'll need the lab and the surveillance footage before we know who."
I imagined Lily waiting at school for a father who never came home. My knees went weak.
"She planned to kill me."
"She may have," Park said. "We follow what the evidence shows. Don't drive the car. Don't go looking for either suspect."
I had spent the previous year calling Vanessa controlling, difficult, or stressed. I had used small words because the truth demanded action.
A technician brought out an item found attached near the rear bumper: a magnetic tracking device. Its battery was still running.
Park turned it over in a gloved hand.
May you like
"It transmitted your location less than an hour ago."
Someone who wanted to find me had never stopped watching.
