Chapter 18 - THE LAST THREAT
The photograph showed Lily leaving preschool with Rebecca. On the back: DROP THE CASE AGAINST VIVIAN. Grant called police first. Months earlier, he would have called Nathan.
Detective Kim traced the envelope through camera footage from Grant's building.
The deliveryman was a courier paid in cash.
It had been printed at a pharmacy kiosk.
Security video showed the purchaser wearing a baseball cap and surgical mask.
"That's Calvin Rusk's brother."
He had been trying to pressure Grant into pushing prosecutors toward a softer deal for Calvin.
Rebecca wanted to move Lily out of state.
"I like my school."
Rebecca knelt. "We can find another one."
Lily's face tightened.
"Because bad people know where I am?"
Dante sat beside her. "Sometimes grown-ups move because it makes them safer."
"Did I do something bad?"
"No."
"Then why do I have to go?"
No adult had a painless answer.
Rebecca took Lily's hands.
"You didn't do anything. We are changing things because other people did."
Lily thought about it.
"Can Daddy still visit?"
"If the judge says yes."
The family relocated temporarily to a guarded apartment owned by Rebecca's employer.
Dante visited on Sundays.
Grant visited every other Wednesday under supervision.
He never complained about the rules.
Then, three weeks before Vivian's trial, prosecutors received a handwritten note from jail.
Then her lawyer delivered one sentence.
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"She says Amelia left something in the house that no one has found."
Grant stopped breathing.
