Chapter 5 - Someone Wanted Us Stuck
Noah ran toward the car.
I grabbed his arm.
"No. Don't."
Smoke poured through the shattered rear window.
Pete, the storage manager, came running with an extinguisher while another employee called 911.
Marlene stood behind us, staring.
"You did this," I said.
She looked offended.
"I just got here."
"You followed us."
"Because you stole my key."
"The key you said wasn't yours?"
For one second, she had no answer.
By the time firefighters arrived, the interior was destroyed.
Gasoline.
She denied everything.
Noah opened the steel case with a screwdriver from Pete's office.
Inside were three cassette tapes, a small digital voice recorder, a yellow envelope, and a sealed laboratory report.
The toxicology report on Emily showed diphenhydramine levels far beyond a normal dose.
Cause of death on the official certificate: sudden unexplained infant death.
My father had circled the difference.
"Claire," Noah said quietly.
I couldn't look away.
A second document was newer.
My own childhood blood panel.
Sedatives.
Age three.
Age four.
Age five.
"No."
Noah reached for my hand.
Orange juice that tasted bitter.
Long naps.
Waking up in emergency rooms while my mother told nurses I was fragile.
"Oh my God."
Noah's face changed.
"You remember."
"Pieces."
The yellow envelope contained photographs.
My father had taken them secretly.
Medicine bottles hidden inside flour containers.
Crushed pills in a coffee grinder.
Then one final photograph.
A picture of the brake line under his car.
Someone had cut halfway through it.
Dated four days before his fatal crash.
"Your father died because his brakes failed?"
I nodded.
Across the lot, Marlene was talking to another officer.
The detective looked at the photograph again.
Then at my mother.
"This isn't just a child-abuse investigation anymore."
May you like
Marlene must have read his face.
Because she suddenly turned and ran.
