Chapter 15 - THE THREE EMPTY SEATS
“I never signed travel permission,” Daniel said.
“We know,” Chen answered. “The consent forms appear fraudulent. We're notifying the appropriate agencies and following the leads.”
Emma heard enough from the kitchen doorway to understand. “He was going to take us?”
Daniel knelt so they were eye level. “He made a plan. That doesn't mean he gets to do it.”
“Mom knew?”
“We're still finding out what she did.”
Chen's team moved quickly. The tickets had been purchased under altered birthdates, with destination information changed twice. Investigators traced a travel agent's payment to Northstar and learned Cody had asked whether children could board with only copies of documents.
No one had boarded. The seats were empty.
The realization made Daniel dizzy. A missed call, one unnoticed document, a child following an adult she recognized—he couldn't bear the possibilities. Rebecca reminded him to focus on what had happened rather than every terrible possibility his mind could create.
That afternoon Emma attended a counseling session. Daniel sat outside the office with a coloring book Lily had abandoned. When Emma emerged, she looked exhausted but a little steadier.
“I told her I still miss Mom sometimes,” she said.
“Of course you do.”
“Does that make me stupid?”
“No. It makes you human.”
At dusk Chen received a surveillance image from a motel outside Waco. Cody stood beside a dark pickup, carrying a hard-sided briefcase. Next to him was a woman with short blond hair.
Rebecca enlarged the picture.
It was not Amanda.
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The woman looked like the picture on the notary firm's archived website—yet that notary had supposedly died three years earlier.
