Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Gone
Elena Mercer ran toward the entrance without a coat. Rain plastered her brown hair across her cheeks. She pounded once on the glass, saw Nora, and stopped as if someone had struck her.
“Mom?” Nora whispered.
Violet lifted her head. “Mommy?”
Paul didn't open the door. The dispatcher's voice was still in his ear. An ambulance was three minutes away, and his backup was coming from the other side of town.
“Elena Mercer?” he called through the glass.
“Yes. Please. He knows where they are.”
“Who does?”
“My husband. Grant.” She looked over her shoulder. “He sent me a message from the girls' tablet. I thought it was a trap. Then I saw his car missing.”
Paul studied the SUV. Elena said she had borrowed it from Grant's garage while he was away, but the plate belonged to a vehicle reported stolen that morning. Another red flag. He could not afford to guess wrong with two children inside.
“Elena, move away from the door and keep your hands where I can see them.”
“I don't have a weapon. Check my purse. Just don't send those girls back.”
Nora pressed her face to the glass beside the desk. “She came back for us,” she said, like she was trying to convince herself.
Behind Nora, Violet was asking the paramedic whether being sick meant she had been bad. The question made Elena's face crumple. 'No, sweetheart,' she called through the open ambulance doors. 'You didn't do anything bad. Not one thing.' Violet nodded as though she wanted to believe it but had forgotten how.
Twenty-two months ago Elena had disappeared after filing a complaint about unexplained medication at a pediatric clinic. Grant told the whole county she'd taken off with another man. Her abandoned car had been found by the river. People stopped looking when the search turned up nothing.
Paul remembered interviewing Grant. The man had cried without producing a tear.
A medic unit pulled under the station awning. Paul unlocked the doors for the crew, directed them to Violet, and brought Elena through separately. Nora ran into her arms. The sound Elena made was not a word.
At the counter Elena saw the syringe in the evidence bag. Her face emptied.
“Where did you get that?”
“Nora brought it,” Paul said.
May you like
Elena pulled a folded paper from her wet jacket. On it was the same series of numbers as the pharmacy label.
“That's why he made me disappear,” she said. “And that's not the only child he tested it on.”
