Chapter 11 - The Pickup List
Police searched Grant’s abandoned car.
Inside were cash, two prepaid phones, and a printed copy of Mia’s school pickup list.
Celeste was listed as an approved guardian.
Vincent had removed her the day before.
The school checked the system.
His change had been reversed that morning using credentials from Daniel’s family office.
Daniel stared at the report.
“I didn’t do this.”
One of his assistants, Kevin Shaw, had access.
Kevin had also worked for Grant years earlier.
Now he was missing.
Vincent moved Mia to a secure townhouse.
She hated the locked doors.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No.”
“Then why are we hiding?”
“Because adults did something wrong.”
She looked down.
“Is Uncle Daniel bad?”
Vincent sat beside her.
“I don’t know yet.”
That answer hurt.
Hannah found a strip of paper sewn into Mia’s old birthday dress.
Grace’s handwriting:
BLUEBIRD IS NOT THE LAST COPY.
BENEATH THE PLACE WHERE MIA LEARNED TO FLY.
Mia smiled faintly.
“I know.”
Grace had built her a small dance studio when she was three.
Mia called ballet flying.
Vincent lifted a floorboard beneath the old practice barre.
A metal case waited underneath.
Inside: a second flash drive, a handwritten ledger, and an envelope addressed to Vincent.
Before he opened it, the townhouse alarm screamed.
Marcus’s voice came over the intercom.
“Everybody away from the windows!”
Glass shattered downstairs.
Vincent grabbed Mia.
Footsteps pounded.
Then a man shouted from the stairwell.
“Vincent!”
May you like
Grant.
“I know you found the second drive.”
