Chapter 6 - BEN’S CALL
Daniel denied it for eleven seconds.
Then he admitted half of it.
“I asked for the money.”
Rachel stood across from him in Detective Brooks’s office.
“What for?”
“Debt.”
“What kind?”
Daniel looked at Brooks.
“That’s personal.”
“Our son is missing.”
Daniel’s shoulders dropped.
A failed real-estate investment.
Two partners had pulled out.
Daniel had personally guaranteed part of the loan.
He owed more than he could cover without selling assets restricted by family agreements.
Margaret had offered to help.
But she wanted something in return.
“Custody?”
“No.”
“What?”
“She wanted me to stop fighting the board.”
Rachel stared at him.
“What board?”
The Carter Medical board was preparing to vote on a sale of several remaining clinics.
Margaret opposed it.
Daniel supported it.
Noah’s trust shares could eventually break a deadlock.
Rachel looked at Brooks.
“Everything comes back to those shares.”
Daniel shook his head.
“She still has voting control right now.”
“Unless something changes.”
“I never asked her to move Noah.”
“She says you did.”
“She’s lying.”
“Why would she tell me something police can verify?”
Daniel had no answer.
At 4:08 p.m.—almost exactly twenty-four hours after Noah left daycare—police found Ben’s truck behind an abandoned garden center twelve miles north of the city.
Rachel and Daniel were told to stay away.
They did not.
Brooks found them parked across the road fifteen minutes later.
“You two are making my job harder.”
Rachel looked past her toward the truck.
The rear door was open.
Noah’s booster seat was inside.
So was one of his blue dinosaur toys.
No Noah.
No Ben.
Brooks eventually allowed Rachel to identify the toy.
She touched the plastic tail with one finger.
Noah had named the dinosaur Mr. Blue because at three years old he had considered species distinctions unnecessary.
Rachel returned it to the evidence bag.
“Was there anything else?”
“A receipt.”
From a grocery store three blocks away.
4:29 p.m. yesterday.
Twenty-six minutes after Ben left the daycare.
A cashier remembered him because he bought apple juice, crackers, and children's motion-sickness chews.
“Noah hates apple juice,” Rachel said.
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
“He hates it. Ben knows that.”
The receipt meant Ben had expected a longer drive.
But the wrong juice suggested somebody else had told him what to buy.
At 5:32, Rachel’s phone rang from an unknown number.
Brooks saw her screen.
“Speaker.”
Rachel answered.
“Hello?”
Breathing.
Then Ben.
“Rachel?”
She nearly dropped the phone.
“Where is Noah?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t have him.”
Daniel leaned toward the phone.
“Ben, what did you do?”
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“You told me to get him.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You sent the code.”
“That wasn’t me.”
Silence.
Rachel forced herself to stay steady.
“Ben, start at the daycare.”
“I got the message. It said Daniel couldn’t call because lawyers were involved. It said you were about to take Noah somewhere.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
The forged emails.
The custody threats.
Someone had created a story Ben was already prepared to believe.
“So you picked him up.”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“I got another message.”
“From Daniel?”
“I thought so.”
Ben’s breathing became uneven.
“It said plans changed. Said you’d meet me.”
“Where?”
“Parking garage by Northgate Market.”
Brooks was already writing.
Rachel asked, “Did you see me?”
“No.”
A pause.
“A woman came.”
Rachel’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“What woman?”
“She looked enough like you from a distance. Camel coat. Brown hair. Same kind of bag you carry.”
Rachel looked down.
She was still wearing the camel coat from the daycare.
Ben continued.
“She had a message from your number. She knew Noah’s peanut allergy. She knew he sleeps with that ridiculous stuffed fox. She knew the phrase you use when somebody else is supposed to take him.”
Rachel’s stomach dropped.
The emergency phrase.
She had created it when Noah started preschool.
“Blue moon.”
Ben whispered, “Yeah.”
Only four people had ever known it.
Rachel.
Daniel.
Ben.
And Margaret.
“What happened?”
“She said you were waiting at another car because reporters might be around.”
“Reporters?”
“I know how stupid it sounds now.”
“Did Noah go with her?”
“He asked where you were. She played a voice message.”
Rachel’s throat tightened.
“My voice?”
“It sounded like you.”
“What did it say?”
“‘Go with her, bug. Mommy’s right behind you.’”
Bug.
Rachel’s private nickname for Noah.
Ben’s voice broke.
“I let him go.”
No one spoke.
Then Rachel heard something behind Ben.
A door.
Footsteps.
Ben inhaled sharply.
“Rachel, listen to me.”
“What?”
“The woman wasn’t the person in charge.”
“How do you know?”
“Because after she drove away, somebody came for me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. But they knew I’d seen her.”
“Ben, where are you?”
“They wanted my phone. I ran.”
A loud knock sounded somewhere near him.
Ben whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Ben—”
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“The woman took her sunglasses off when she got Noah into the car.”
Rachel pressed the phone closer.
“Did you recognize her?”
“No.”
Then Ben said the sentence that changed the investigation again.
“But I saw her ID badge hanging inside the car.”
“What did it say?”
“Meridian Child Safety.”
The call disconnected.
Daniel stared at Rachel.
May you like
Rachel had heard that name before.
Margaret Carter had used Meridian for private security at family events for years.
