Chapter 6 - The Quiet Room
The marshal driving us pulled onto a service road and stopped beneath an overpass. Nolan cut the tracker out of the backpack with a small pocketknife and placed it in a sealed bag. He didn't pretend it was a toy. He said it could have been used to locate us.
I watched the disk disappear into the bag and felt sick. Dad had lifted my backpack onto the kitchen counter every afternoon. He knew the color of my sneakers, the name of my teacher, which stair squeaked when I tried to get a glass of water at night. That kind of knowing was supposed to make a child feel safe.
We changed vehicles and reached a protected apartment before midnight. It had plain curtains, a narrow sofa, and a refrigerator that hummed too loudly. A woman named Deputy Marshal Nina Alvarez showed us how to lock the doors and where to find the bathroom. She smiled when I asked whether there was a rule against turning on every light.
"Tonight?" she said. "You can light up the whole place."
Mom slept in the bedroom. I sat on the sofa and listened to the refrigerator hum. I had always thought a safe house would have high fences and men with guns.
Nina sat at the table doing paperwork. "What happens to Dad?" I asked.
"A judge will decide what happens in his criminal case. Your mom's lawyer will help with the family court part. You don't have to decide tonight."
"He used to make pancakes in the shape of bears."
Nina set down her pen. "People can do kind things and harmful things. One doesn't erase the other."
My eyes filled. I hated that I still remembered the pancakes.
A phone rang in the hall. Nina answered and stepped outside. When she returned, she was no longer smiling.
"Sarah," she called softly.
Mom appeared in the doorway, her hair tangled from sleep. Nina held out a photograph recovered from Ryan's phone: a document with Mom's old signature and a line of numbers beneath it.
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"Someone sent this to your husband yesterday," Nina said. "The message underneath says, 'Bring me the second page.'"
Mom's lips parted. "There shouldn't be a second page. I watched Lena burn it."
