Chapter 5 - The Call
Nobody spoke.
The phone kept ringing.
Ortiz answered on speaker. “Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice said, “Charles?”
Ortiz glanced at Ethan. “Who is this?”
The line disconnected.
Charles reached for the phone. Ortiz pulled it back.
“You said Thomas Bell was dead,” she said.
“I believed he was.”
“Then why is his number saved in your phone?”
Charles stared at the screen. “It isn’t saved.”
Ortiz checked. He was right. The name had appeared because the number matched an old contact record synced from the device’s cloud history.
Ethan laughed bitterly. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
Charles lowered his voice. “I made mistakes years ago. None of them involved Lily.”
Claire stepped closer. “Did they involve Anna?”
Charles looked at her.
That was answer enough.
Ortiz’s radio crackled. A patrol unit had located the stolen catering van three miles away near an abandoned rail yard.
Ethan was already moving.
Ortiz blocked him. “You’re not coming.”
“That’s my niece.”
“And if the kidnapper sees you and panics, you could get her hurt.”
Claire grabbed Ethan’s arm. “Let them go first.”
He looked at her, torn apart by helplessness.
Twenty-eight minutes later, Ortiz called from the rail yard.
The van was empty.
But there was blood on the passenger seat.
Ethan nearly dropped Claire’s phone.
“Whose?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Claire felt the baby move hard beneath her palm.
Then Ortiz added, “We found something else. A child’s drawing.”
She texted a photo.
The paper showed three stick figures under a blue roof: a woman, a little girl and a tall man. Above them, Lily had written in uneven letters: MOMMY, ME, TOM.
Ethan stared. “Tom?”
Claire’s mind raced.
Lily had been four when Anna died. She should barely have remembered Thomas Bell.
Unless she had seen him afterward.
Claire said, “Lily knows him.”
Victoria, standing near the doorway, whispered, “No.”
Everyone turned.
Ethan’s voice became quiet. “What do you know?”
Victoria shook her head. “Nothing.”
“You just reacted to a name.”
“I reacted because this is horrifying.”
Claire stepped toward her. “You knew Thomas was alive.”
Victoria’s composure cracked.
“Claire, stop.”
“No.”
“Stop.”
“You’ve been telling people to stop for three years.”
Victoria’s eyes filled with rage. “Because you don’t understand what Anna did.”
Ethan went still.
“What did Anna do?”
Victoria looked at him, then at Charles.
Charles said sharply, “Victoria.”
She ignored him.
“Anna stole records from the foundation,” she said. “Then she gave copies to Thomas Bell.”
“Why?” Claire asked.
“Because Thomas wasn’t a security contractor.”
May you like
Victoria swallowed.
“He was an FBI informant.”
