Chapter 13 - The Phone Under the Seat
The call stayed connected.
Jake heard fabric scrape, Ben cry out, and Todd curse.
“Give me the phone.”
“No!”
“Benjamin!”
Jake forced himself not to shout. If Todd knew police were coming, he might run faster.
“Ben,” Jake said, calm enough to surprise himself, “do what he says. Don’t fight.”
Silence.
Todd picked up the phone.
“Well,” he said. “There he is.”
Jake’s entire body went rigid.
“Put Ben somewhere safe and walk away.”
“You don’t get to tell me how to raise him.”
“You’re not raising him. You’re using him.”
Dana shook her head sharply.
Jake corrected himself.
“Listen. The house sale is stopped. The bank account is frozen. Whatever you thought you were fixing by running, it’s over.”
Todd breathed into the phone.
“You think this is about money?”
“What is it about?”
“You.”
Jake said nothing.
Todd’s voice cracked with old resentment.
“My sister waited four years for a man who put strangers ahead of his family. She visited you. Wrote you. Saved for you. Every week was Jake, Jake, Jake. Then she died and I was the one left cleaning up.”
“You could have asked for help.”
“From who? You?”
“No. From anyone. You didn’t have to steal from Ben.”
Todd went quiet.
Then he said, “He was better off thinking you forgot him.”
Jake felt the sentence like a blade.
“You hid the letters.”
“I put them where no one would see them.”
“You forged Rachel’s name.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know enough.”
Sirens became faintly audible through the phone.
Todd heard them too.
The line clicked dead.
Dana was already moving.
“Units are arriving.”
Jake stood.
Grant pointed at him. “You stay.”
For once, Jake did not argue.
Five minutes passed.
Ten.
Then Dana’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, and her face changed.
“What?” Jake demanded.
“The truck is there.”
“And Ben?”
“Not in it.”
Jake went cold.
Dana continued listening.
“They found Todd’s jacket and wallet on the front seat.”
“Where did he go?”
The answer came through the speaker.
“Witness saw a man and a boy get into a white delivery van.”
Jake stared at the map.
May you like
Todd had changed vehicles.
And now the police had lost them again.
