Chapter 1 - THE APARTMENT THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DARKAt 2:17 in the morning, Officer Daniel Reed expected a power outage.
He found two children instead.
The East Nashville apartment hallway was fully lit when Reed forced open Unit 3C.
Inside was darkness.
Seven-year-old Emma stumbled backward barefoot, dragging her four-year-old brother behind her.
Noah buried his face against her pale-blue pajamas.
Emma raised one arm in front of him as though a seventy-pound second grader might somehow stop two armed adults if she needed to.
Reed lowered his flashlight immediately.
“Police. You’re okay.”
Emma’s eyes moved from his uniform to Officer Laura Hayes behind him.
Then she said something neither officer expected.
“Funny… Mom said the man would claim she abandoned us.”
Reed’s expression changed.
“What man?”
Emma did not answer.
Not yet.
Hayes crossed toward the electrical panel.
She opened it.
The main breaker had been switched off.
She pushed it up.
The apartment came alive instantly.
Kitchen light.
Hall lamp.
Television.
The refrigerator began humming.
Reed looked through the open door toward the fully lit building hallway.
“Some blackout,” he murmured. “Your neighbors never lost a bulb.”
Emma tightened her arm around Noah.
Reed asked:
“Where’s your mother?”
Emma’s lips trembled.
“She was here.”
“When?”
“When we went to sleep.”
“And when did you wake up?”
“When it got dark.”
“How long ago?”
“I don’t know.”
Noah finally spoke.
“Mom screamed.”
Emma turned sharply toward him.
“Shh.”
Reed noticed.
“Emma, he’s not in trouble.”
She looked at him suspiciously.
“Mom said not to tell the man anything.”
“I’m not the man.”
That seemed to matter.
A little.
Hayes checked the kitchen.
Rachel Mercer’s wallet sat inside a drawer.
Her purse hung from a chair.
Her car keys were beside the coffee maker.
Shoes lined the wall near the front door.
Reed looked back at Emma.
“Your mom leave barefoot?”
Emma shook her head.
“He said she ran away.”
“Who?”
This time Emma whispered:
“Travis.”
The name was familiar from the dispatch notes.
Travis Hale.
Rachel Mercer’s former fiancé.
He had called police less than an hour earlier.
According to Travis, Rachel had been emotionally unstable since their breakup and had left her two children alone after “taking off somewhere.”
He claimed he discovered the situation when Emma called him frightened about the blackout.
Emma now said something very different.
“He was already here.”
Reed felt the case change beneath him.
Hayes returned to the breaker panel.
“Dan.”
She pointed toward the switch.
Fresh scratches marked the metal around it.
Caught near the edge of the panel was a tiny piece of blue fabric.
Hayes carefully preserved it.
Emma stared.
Her face changed.
“That’s Mom’s jacket.”
Reed crouched.
“Was she wearing it?”
Emma nodded.
“She put it on when Travis started yelling.”
“What were they yelling about?”
Emma’s answer came quietly.
“Papers.”
Reed looked toward Hayes.
“What papers?”
Emma pointed toward the little desk beside the kitchen.
“Mom said he wanted her to sign something and she said no.”
Noah began crying again.
Emma held him tighter.
“She told us if the lights went out, stay together.”
Reed went still.
Rachel had anticipated something.
Not necessarily her disappearance.
But danger.
He stood.
From the hallway came a soft floorboard creak.
Emma’s head snapped toward the doorway.
Noah stopped crying.
Reed followed her stare.
Nobody appeared.
But Emma whispered:
“He came back before.”
“Travis?”
She nodded.
“What did he want?”
Emma looked toward the desk.
“Mom’s folder.”
May you like
The folder was gone.
And so was Rachel.
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