Chapter 4: The Note She Left Behind
The handwriting was careful.
Small and even, like someone who had learned to take up as little space as possible.
*If you are reading this, something went wrong and I couldn't get her out myself.
Her name is Lily.
She is seven years old.
She is not safe in that house.
I have tried to report this twice.
Both times I was told there was no evidence.
Both times the case was closed within a week.
I don't know who is protecting Marcus Hale.
But someone is.
Please don't let them close it again.*
Below that was a list.
Dates.
Incidents.
Specific descriptions written in plain, careful language — the kind of language someone uses when they know they have to be believed.
I sat on the edge of the bed and read every word.
Lily sat beside me.
She didn't ask what it said.
She already knew what it said.
"Her name was Donna," Lily said quietly.
"She lived next door.
She used to leave food on the fence post for me when they forgot to feed me."
My throat closed.
"She's not there anymore," Lily said.
"She moved away before they brought me to you."
I folded the note back along its creases.
"Did Donna know Daniel?"
Lily thought about it.
"He came to the house a lot.
He and Marcus would talk in the garage with the door closed.
Donna didn't like him.
She said he had the same eyes as Marcus."
I heard Daniel's footsteps on the stairs.
He knocked twice.
"We should talk.
Properly.
Like adults."
I looked at Lily.
"Go to your room for a few minutes, sweetheart.
Take your rabbit."
She went without a word.
She was very good at disappearing when she needed to.
I opened the door.
Daniel came in and saw the open folder on the bed.
He saw the note.
His eyes moved across it and then back to me.
"Where did you get that?"
"It was in your box."
"That is not mine.
That belongs to Marcus."
"You stored it.
In your car.
For how long?"
"I don't know what's in every folder."
"Donna Reyes," I said.
"Does that name mean anything to you?"
A pause.
Half a second too long.
"No."
"She wrote this note about Lily.
She tried to report what was happening twice.
Both reports were closed.
Do you know anything about that?"
"Of course not."
"She said someone was protecting Marcus.
She didn't know who."
"That's a paranoid woman writing a paranoid note."
I picked up the note.
"She lists six specific incidents with dates.
She describes what Lily looked like on each of those dates.
She describes what she heard through the fence." I set it back down.
"This is not paranoia.
This is a record."
Daniel sat down on the edge of the chair near the window.
He put his hands on his knees.
When he looked up, his expression had changed.
The calculation was gone.
What replaced it was something I hadn't expected.
He looked tired.
"You don't know what Marcus is capable of," he said.
"I was trying to protect you."
"From what?"
"From getting involved in something that could destroy this family."
"Our family," I said, "includes Lily."
He looked at the floor.
"I know that."
"Then tell me what you know.
All of it.
Right now."
He was quiet for a long moment.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
Something crossed his face — fast, controlled, gone.
"I have to take this."
He stood up and walked out of the room.
I listened to his footsteps go down the stairs.
I heard the back door open and close.
I picked up the second folder.
The one with Donna Reyes's name on the tab.
Inside was a single printed document.
A child protective services intake form.
Dated two years ago.
The reporting party was listed as Donna Reyes.
The case worker assigned to the investigation was listed as a name I didn't know.
May you like
But the supervisor who had authorized the case closure — the one who had signed the bottom of the form — was someone I did know.
His last name was Hale.
