Chapter 8 - Rachel Comes Home
Daniel drove back to the hotel with police behind him.
Rachel opened the door before he knocked.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Not mine.”
Emma stepped out of the bathroom.
Daniel looked at both of them.
“Samuel Price was involved.”
Rachel sat down.
That was answer enough.
“You knew that too.”
“I suspected.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“When I could prove it.”
Daniel laughed once. “That sentence has ruined half my life.”
Rachel’s face hardened. “You think I enjoyed leaving you?”
“You did leave.”
“Because Samuel came to Emma’s school.”
Daniel stopped.
Rachel opened her phone and showed him a photograph from fourteen months earlier. Samuel stood near the school parking lot beside Emma’s bus.
“He told me your father had left dangerous material behind. He said if you started digging, Emma could get hurt.”
“You should have told me.”
“I tried.”
“No, you gave me half-sentences and then moved out.”
Rachel’s voice rose. “Because every time I mentioned your father, you defended him before I finished speaking.”
Emma stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Both parents went silent.
She looked at Daniel.
“Mom made bad choices. You did too. Can we survive the night first?”
Daniel nodded.
Rachel handed him another envelope.
“Your father gave me this with the letter.”
Inside was a small brass key and an address.
ASHCROFT HOUSE - ARCHIVE BUILDING B.
Below it, his father had written:
IF LAURA IS GONE, THE TAPE IS STILL THERE.
Emma stared at the note.
“What tape?”
Daniel’s phone buzzed.
A video message from Samuel Price.
The screen showed Daniel’s empty house.
Samuel walked into view inside the hidden room.
He looked directly at the camera.
“Daniel, you have until noon tomorrow to return what your father stole.”
May you like
Then he opened the gray safe.
It was empty.
