Chapter 5: Running
I was in Emma's room in under a minute.
She was asleep on her side, one arm around the stuffed rabbit she'd had since she was two.
I stood in the doorway and watched her breathe for three seconds — just watched, just counted — and then I crossed the room and lifted her, rabbit and all, without turning on the light.
She stirred.
"Mommy?"
"Shh.
We're going on a little trip."
"Now?"
"Right now, baby."
I carried her to the front door.
Grabbed my coat from the hook.
My bag was already on the counter — I hadn't unpacked it from Baltimore.
I took it without stopping.
Mark's bedroom door was still closed.
I didn't look at it.
I got Emma into the car, buckled her in, and pulled out of the driveway with the headlights off until I reached the end of the street.
Rachel was waiting outside her building when I arrived.
She had a coat over her pajamas and a bag over her shoulder.
She got into the back seat beside Emma without a word and put her arm around her.
"Where are we going?" Emma asked.
"Aunt Rachel's friend has a house," Rachel said.
"We're going to stay there for a little while."
"Does it have a garden?"
"I think it does."
Emma seemed to accept this.
She leaned into Rachel's side and closed her eyes again.
I drove.
After ten minutes, Rachel leaned forward between the seats.
"Marsh approached Mark three months ago," she said quietly.
"Mark told me about it because he needed me to understand why the situation had changed.
Marsh offered to clear the debt — all of it — in exchange for information."
"What kind of information?"
"Mark handles pharmaceutical-grade sedatives at work.
Marsh's client needed access to a specific compound.
Not to use — to replicate.
Mark was going to provide the formula and a sample quantity."
I kept my eyes on the road.
"And Emma's sedation was the sample."
Rachel's voice dropped.
"I didn't know that part until tonight.
I thought it was just about buying time.
I didn't know Mark had already agreed to deliver a sample to Marsh.
I didn't know Emma was the delivery mechanism."
My hands tightened on the wheel.
"He used our daughter," I said.
"To prove the compound worked."
Rachel didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
We drove another twenty minutes in silence.
Then my phone lit up on the passenger seat.
Mark.
Calling.
I let it ring.
It rang again.
Then a text appeared.
*I know you left.
Come back and we can fix this.
If you go to the police, Marsh will make sure Emma is the one who looks like the target.
He has people inside the department.*
I read it once.
Then I handed the phone to Rachel.
She read it.
Her face went still.
"He's threatening Emma," she said.
"He's threatening to use Emma as leverage if I talk." I turned onto the highway.
"Which means he's more afraid of what I know than he's letting on."
"What do you know?"
I thought of Malcolm in the Baltimore hotel room.
The way he'd leaned forward.
The way he'd said Mark's name.
"Malcolm Reeves," I said.
"He bought the sedative from Mark.
He told me that himself.
He said he bought it to kjll the man who owed him money — and that man was Mark."
"So Malcolm and Mark are on opposite sides."
"They were.
But Malcolm talked to me voluntarily.
He didn't have to.
He wanted me to know." I merged onto the highway.
"Which means Malcolm is afraid of something too.
And afraid people talk."
Rachel was quiet for a moment.
"What are you going to do?"
I checked the mirror.
Emma was asleep again, her head against Rachel's arm.
"I'm going to find out what Malcolm is actually willing to say on record," I said.
"And then I'm going to give the police something they can't ignore."
My phone lit up again.
Another text from Mark.
This one just said: *Don't.*
I turned the phone face-down on the seat.
May you like
The highway stretched out ahead of us, dark and empty.
Behind us, the city lights were already shrinking.
