Chapter 6 - The Price of Knowing
Kendra Walsh was found at the Blue Heron Lodge just before dawn.
She was sitting on the edge of a motel bed, soaked hoodie draped over a chair, while Lily slept beside her in a purple T-shirt with the pink backpack tucked under one arm. She was frightened, confused, and very quickly cooperative once detectives separated her from the story Vanessa had fed her.
By six-thirty, Ryan was at the motel.
He did not storm through the room or snatch Lily in some movie version of fatherhood. He waited in the hallway until Detective Morales brought his daughter out wrapped in a hotel towel and smelling faintly of baby shampoo.
Lily blinked up at him, then burst into tears so hard she hiccuped.
“Daddy came back,” she said.
Ryan took her from Morales and held her against his shoulder, one hand spread carefully across her wet hair. She was unharmed. Conscious. Warm. The relief hit him so suddenly his knees almost gave.
Kendra stood in the doorway with a female officer beside her.
“I thought Vanessa had permission,” she said. “She told me Ryan had a temper and was getting home tonight. She said she needed me to drive Lily to the motel because she didn’t want the kids in the car together while Noah was having one of his episodes.”
Ryan looked at her for a long moment. Nineteen. Babysat twice. Still lived with her mother. Too young to understand how adult lies recruit people.
“What happened next?” Morales asked.
“Vanessa said she’d bring Noah and meet me there. Then she kept texting, ‘Not yet, not yet, keep Lily calm.’ After a while she said plans changed and her cousin Brooke would come get the girl.” Kendra swallowed. “She also kept saying, ‘They’ll be here tomorrow, they’ll take everything tomorrow.’”
Ryan shifted Lily higher on his shoulder.
“Who’s they?”
Kendra shook her head. “I don’t know. She was crying by then.”
When Ryan brought Lily back to the house, Noah was waiting in the kitchen wearing dry pajamas and Paige’s old college sweatshirt. The moment he saw his sister, he slid off the chair and wrapped both arms around her legs.
Lily hugged him back, then frowned.
“Nessa mad,” she said. “She said we had to be faster than the lady from school.”
Morales, standing near the doorway with a notebook, lifted her eyes.
“What lady from school?”
Noah answered in the matter-of-fact voice children use when they think adults already know the whole story.
“The one I told about the cage.”
Ryan felt Lily tense in his arms.
May you like
Morales didn’t write for a second.
Then she said, very carefully, “Noah, who did you tell?”
