Chapter 3 - The Emergency Contact

I drove with one hand on the wheel and one hand resting on Ellie’s knee.

She had finally stopped crying, but every few minutes she sniffed and touched her cheek.

I called the police from the car. Then I called my mother.

“Bring her here,” Mom said the second I finished explaining. “And Claire? Don’t go back into that house alone.”

“You knew something.”

A long pause.

“I suspected something.”

“What?”

“Not over the phone.”

That terrified me.

At my mother’s house, two officers met us in the driveway. One spoke gently with Ellie while the other photographed the mark on her face. Ellie told them Vanessa had slapped her because she spilled juice and reached for Vanessa’s bracelet afterward.

Then the officer asked, “Has Aunt Vanessa hit you before?”

Ellie looked at me.

My chest tightened.

“You can tell the truth,” I said.

She whispered, “Sometimes she squeezes my arm.”

“How many times?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does anyone see it?”

“Grandma Margaret.”

My knees nearly gave out.

Later, when Ellie was asleep on my mother’s couch, I opened the school’s parent portal.

The emergency contact page made my blood run cold.

Primary guardian: Daniel Mercer.

Secondary guardian: Margaret Mercer.

Authorized pickup: Vanessa Hale.

My name was listed under “Other Contact.”

I stared at the screen until the words blurred.

“That can’t happen without paperwork,” Mom said.

“I never signed anything.”

“Then somebody signed for you.”

I downloaded the authorization form.

At the bottom was a signature.

CLAIRE MERCER.

It looked almost perfect.

Almost.

My real signature had a long upward stroke on the final r. This one didn’t.

Mom sat beside me. “I told you three years ago that Margaret was getting too involved.”

“You said she was controlling.”

“I was trying not to destroy your marriage based on a feeling.”

“What feeling?”

She looked toward the sleeping child in the next room.

Then she walked to an old desk, unlocked the bottom drawer, and pulled out a white envelope.

“I found this under your windshield six months ago,” she said.

Inside was a photograph of Ellie walking out of school with Vanessa.

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On the back, someone had written five words in black ink.

THEY ARE PREPARING TO TAKE HER.