Chapter 12 - The Safe Place Wasn't Safe
Cullen called Mara.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Vale contacted the protection detail.
The first officer answered immediately.
"They're secure. No breach."
"Put Mara on."
A pause.
"She's asleep."
Cullen's skin prickled.
Mara never slept through her phone.
Vale's voice sharpened. "Wake her. Now."
More silence.
Then the line went dead.
Police reached the safe apartment eleven minutes later.
The protection officer was unconscious in the hall, drugged but alive.
Mara was found tied in the bedroom.
Mireya was gone.
Vale grabbed his shoulders.
"Look at me. We will find her."
"You told me she was safe."
"I know."
Mara coughed against the oxygen mask.
"It was Tove."
Cullen knelt beside her.
"Where did she take Mireya?"
"I don't know. She had Bryce with her. He looked sick. Scared."
"Bryce helped her?"
"No. I think she was forcing him."
Mara pulled something from her pocket.
A folded piece of paper.
"Mireya dropped this before Tove took her."
It was a child's drawing.
A lighthouse.
Three waves.
A red door.
Cullen stared.
"The old lighthouse."
The place where Marisol had hidden Mireya the night she died.
Vale was already moving.
Cullen followed.
At the lighthouse road, police found Bryce's blood on a guardrail.
Fresh tire tracks continued toward the cliffs.
Then Cullen saw a small pink sneaker in the gravel.
Mireya's.
He picked it up with shaking hands.
From somewhere beyond the lighthouse came a child's scream.
May you like
"Daddy!"
Cullen ran before anyone could stop him.
