Chapter 6 - The Kidnapping Report
The word kidnapped made my stomach turn so hard I nearly dropped the binder.
June read the message over Adrian’s shoulder. “Vivienne moved fast.”
“She always does,” he said.
Sirens rose somewhere beyond the garage. Adrian took Sophie’s hand. “We’re going to the police. Right now.”
June shook her head. “Not the officers assigned to the hotel. Kessler pays their off-duty security company.”
“Then the state police.”
“First listen to the recording.”
She offered her phone. A woman appeared on the screen, sitting in a hospital bed. Dark hair, tired eyes, a bruise fading along her cheek. Adrian stopped breathing.
Laurel Vale looked directly into the camera.
“If you’re seeing this, something has happened to me,” she said. “Adrian, I did not leave you. I did not abandon Sophie. I have proof of what they’re doing to the trust.”
She glanced toward a door.
“Don’t sign anything brought by Dr. Mercer. And don't believe a death certificate without a medical examiner's seal.”
The video ended.
Adrian’s eyes were wet. “When?”
“Fourteen months ago,” June said.
“You knew she was alive fourteen months ago and didn’t call me?”
“I tried. Every call was redirected. Then my license was threatened. My son got followed home from school. I spent months looking for a safe way out.”
Sophie pulled at his coat. “Daddy, she sang to me through the wall.”
He knelt. “When, sweetheart?”
“Before the big sleep.”
June closed her eyes. “That’s what they called the treatments.”
Before Adrian could answer, two police cruisers rolled into the garage. An officer climbed out with a hand resting near his holster.
“Mr. Vale,” he said, “we received a report that your daughter was abducted by a hotel employee.”
Adrian stepped forward. “I'm her father. She's with me.”
The officer looked at his tablet. “According to the emergency guardianship order filed this afternoon, Mrs. Vivienne Vale has temporary sole custody pending a fitness evaluation.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Sir, I need you to step aside.”
The officer’s partner approached me. “Mara Ellis? You're being detained for questioning.”
Sophie screamed, “She saved me!”
I held out my hands because I knew resistance would make everything worse.
As the cold cuffs closed around my wrists, I saw a signature at the bottom of the officer’s tablet.
May you like
It was Adrian’s.
And he swore he had never signed it.
