Chapter 7 - Missing at 3:10
I was halfway across the police lobby when Chloe's school called.
Mrs. Alvarez's name flashed on my screen.
I answered while Detective Ruiz was still speaking to the desk officer.
"Nathan, where is Chloe?"
Everything in me stopped.
"At school."
"No."
The lobby noise dropped away.
"What do you mean, no?"
"She was signed out at 2:47."
I looked at the clock over the front desk.
3:10.
"By who?"
Mrs. Alvarez hesitated one beat too long.
"Your mother."
I started walking before I knew where I was going.
Ruiz saw my face and followed.
"Tell me exactly what happened," I said.
"A front-office substitute processed it. Diane showed identification and said Chloe had a medical appointment. The permanent staff member who knows about the dispute was at lunch."
"Did Chloe go willingly?"
"Security video shows them leaving together. Chloe was carrying her backpack."
I ended the call and dialed Chloe.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
I dialed Diane.
The number rang five times.
Then she answered.
"What have you done?" I said.
"Lower your voice."
"Put Chloe on the phone."
"She is safe."
"Where?"
"Away from you until you calm down."
Detective Ruiz held out her hand for my phone.
I put it on speaker instead.
"Mom, you removed a minor from school after the school knew there was a custody and fraud dispute. Tell me where she is."
"Custody? Fraud? Listen to yourself. This is what I was afraid of."
"Where is Chloe?"
"You abandoned her for five years and now you think a few bank statements make you Father of the Year."
Ruiz mouthed: keep her talking.
I forced my voice lower.
"Then let me hear Chloe say she's okay."
Silence.
A car indicator clicked faintly through the speaker.
They were moving.
"Mom."
"She doesn't want to speak to you."
"Put her on."
A rustle.
Then Chloe's voice, small and close.
"Dad?"
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah."
"Do you know where you are?"
Diane cut in.
"That's enough."
The call ended.
I swore and hit redial.
Ruiz stopped me.
"Don't flood the line. We need location."
"Her phone's location sharing was through Diane. We turned it off."
"Any other family app? Google? Apple? School device management?"
Chloe's school laptop.
I called Mrs. Alvarez again.
"Her Chromebook. Can IT locate it?"
"If it's online. Hold on."
Ruiz was already moving.
She spoke to another officer, then led me into a side room.
"Because you're the legal parent and there's an active concern, we can treat this as an interference and welfare issue. But if Chloe appears to be voluntarily with a caregiver she's lived with for years, we need clean facts."
"She's fifteen. Diane lied to sign her out."
"That helps. Keep breathing."
I hated the sentence.
I did it anyway.
My phone vibrated.
A text from Chloe.
DON'T CALL.
Then another.
SHE'S REALLY MAD.
I typed: WHERE ARE YOU?
The message showed delivered.
No answer.
I wrote: SEND ANYTHING. STREET NAME. STORE. PHOTO.
Three dots appeared.
Stopped.
Then a photo came through.
Blurry concrete.
A roll-up metal door.
The edge of a red sign with white numbers.
Ruiz took the phone.
"Storage facility."
I zoomed in.
Only three characters were visible on the sign.
...314.
"Unit number?"
"Maybe."
Another message arrived.
SHE SAYS WE'RE GETTING MY PAPERS.
My chest tightened.
"What papers?"
Ruiz said it at the same time I did.
Birth certificate.
Social Security card.
Estate records.
Evidence.
Diane wasn't hiding Chloe.
She was moving documents.
Maybe both.
Mrs. Alvarez called back.
"The Chromebook connected six minutes ago through a mobile hotspot, then disconnected. IT captured the approximate network location."
"Where?"
She gave an intersection west of downtown.
Ruiz typed it into her phone.
"There are three storage facilities within a mile."
We ran.
I rode in an unmarked police car while another unit headed toward Mom's house.
The first storage facility had blue doors.
Chloe's photo showed gray.
Ruiz radioed the plate number from Diane's SUV to patrol units while I searched the image Chloe had sent.
There was more in the corner than concrete.
A sliver of a yellow advertisement.
A phone number ending in 88.
I enlarged it until the pixels broke apart.
Ruiz took one glance and called dispatch.
"Check storage facilities near the Chromebook ping with signage ending eight-eight."
Thirty seconds later, dispatch came back with two possibilities.
One was five miles away.
The other was less than half a mile from the network location.
Ruiz changed direction so hard the tires chirped.
My phone vibrated again.
For one stupid second, relief hit me because I thought it was Chloe calling back.
It wasn't.
Not Chloe.
Diane.
YOU ARE MAKING HER AFRAID OF THE ONLY PERSON WHO STAYED.
A second message followed.
IF YOU INVOLVE POLICE, SHE WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU.
I showed Ruiz.
"Save those," she said.
"I'm done saving things. I want my daughter."
"Then help me get there with evidence instead of anger."
I took a screenshot and backed it up to email.
My hands shook so hard I sent it twice.
Then Chloe's photo opened again, and I noticed one more detail.
A reflection in the metal door.
Diane's black SUV was parked directly behind her.
They had stopped moving.
The first storage facility had blue doors.
Chloe's photo showed gray.
The second had red unit numbers, but the buildings were brick.
The third sat behind a tire shop with rows of pale concrete buildings and gray roll-up doors.
A red sign marked each unit.
My phone vibrated again.
A location pin.
For half a second, I thought Chloe had turned sharing back on.
Then I saw the message.
It was a single dropped pin sent manually.
Exactly where we were headed.
I called her.
One ring.
Two.
She answered without speaking.
I could hear metal scraping.
"Chloe?"
A whisper.
"Unit three fourteen."
Then Diane's voice exploded in the background.
"Give me that phone!"
The line went dead.
Ruiz accelerated.
May you like
My screen showed Chloe's location for one final second.
Then the dot vanished.
