Harper looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cEthan?\u201d<\/p>\n
I walked into the hallway.<\/p>\n
Daniel was gone.<\/p>\n
Detective Mills was on his radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere is he?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mills turned.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said he needed the restroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe two minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
My phone buzzed.<\/p>\n
Home security notification.<\/p>\n
FRONT DOOR OPENED \u2014 8:47 P.M.<\/p>\n
I showed Mills.<\/p>\n
His face hardened.<\/p>\n
Daniel had left the hospital.<\/p>\n
And he had gone back to my house.<\/p>\n
Police units were dispatched immediately.<\/p>\n
I stayed at the hospital.<\/p>\n
Every instinct screamed at me to go after him.<\/p>\n
But Violet needed a father more than I needed revenge.<\/p>\n
At 9:16, Mills received a call.<\/p>\n
His expression changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
He listened.<\/p>\n
Then looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers found Mercer inside your home office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harper gasped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the black case?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mills nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s not all.\u201d<\/p>\n
He turned his phone toward me.<\/p>\n
A photograph from the scene showed Daniel handcuffed beside my desk.<\/p>\n
The black case sat open.<\/p>\n
Next to it was a second bag.<\/p>\n
Inside were gloves.<\/p>\n
Cash.<\/p>\n
Two prepaid phones.<\/p>\n
And Violet\u2019s missing birthday necklace.<\/p>\n
Harper whispered, \u201cOh my God.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mills continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne phone contains messages between Mercer and the two suspects.\u201d<\/p>\n
My hands curled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat messages?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mills hesitated.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstructions.\u201d<\/p>\n
He read one.<\/p>\n
\u201cGirl gets home at 3:15. Alarm code 0612. Search office. Scare her if necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harper broke down.<\/p>\n
But Mills wasn\u2019t finished.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s another message.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked directly at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cSent after the attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does it say?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mills turned the screen.<\/p>\n
Daniel had written:<\/p>\n
YOU IDIOTS. I SAID SCARE HER. NOW HER FATHER IS HOME EARLY. GET OUT OF TOWN.<\/p>\n
For fifteen years, people had told me the most dangerous moment was when a man lost control.<\/p>\n
They were wrong.<\/p>\n
The most dangerous moment was when he found it again.<\/p>\n
I looked through the glass at Violet.<\/p>\n
Then back at Mills.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want every message preserved.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery camera.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery person involved prosecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mills nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at Harper.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis doesn\u2019t end with Daniel.\u201d<\/p>\n
She wiped her face.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
I remembered the black case.<\/p>\n
The contractor.<\/p>\n
The stolen equipment.<\/p>\n
The investigation Daniel had been strangely interested in.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t send those boys into my house for money.\u201d<\/p>\n
My phone rang.<\/p>\n
Unknown number.<\/p>\n
Detective Mills gestured for me to answer on speaker.<\/p>\n
I did.<\/p>\n
A distorted male voice said five words:<\/p>\n
\u201cCross, you should\u2019ve stayed deployed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then the line went dead.<\/p>\n
Mills stared at the phone.<\/p>\n
Harper stopped crying.<\/p>\n
And suddenly I understood.<\/p>\n
Daniel wasn\u2019t the man at the top.<\/p>\n
He was the man they were willing to sacrifice.<\/p>\n
Someone else had known exactly when I was supposed to return.<\/p>\n
Someone else wanted that case.<\/p>\n
And whoever had nearly destroyed my daughter had just made one enormous mistake.<\/p>\n
They had left her alive.<\/p>\n
And Violet had heard a name.<\/p>\n
A name she hadn\u2019t told the police yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Harper looked at me. \u201cEthan?\u201d I walked into the hallway. Daniel was gone. Detective Mills was on his radio. \u201cWhere is he?\u201d Mills turned. \u201cHe said he needed the restroom.\u201d … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family-drama-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11877,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11875\/revisions\/11877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}