Chapter 2 - The People Emma Already Knew
Police arrived twenty minutes later.
By then the storm had swallowed whatever tire tracks might have remained on the long gravel service drive.
Daniel sat with Noah against his chest while an officer spoke gently with Emma.
Vanessa remained in the kitchen.
She had stopped crying.
That frightened Daniel almost as much as the laundry room.
Emma described Eric and Aaron separately.
She knew both men.
Eric Bennett was Daniel’s forty-two-year-old brother and chief operating officer at Bennett Commercial Group, the real-estate company their father had built.
Aaron Cole was Vanessa’s thirty-two-year-old younger brother.
Daniel believed Aaron was living in Arizona after completing treatment for opioid addiction two years earlier.
Apparently, he wasn’t.
“What were they doing upstairs?” Daniel asked.
Emma looked toward Vanessa.
The officer noticed.
“Vanessa won’t come in unless you want her to.”
Emma shook her head immediately.
Then she whispered, “They wanted Dad’s red book.”
Daniel frowned.
“What red book?”
“The one from your office.”
He had no red book.
At least none he could remember.
Emma continued.
“Uncle Eric kept saying, ‘Find it before Daniel gets back.’”
Daniel looked at Vanessa.
She was staring at the floor.
The officer asked whether anything appeared missing.
Daniel checked his home office.
One desk drawer had been forced open.
His laptop remained.
So did cash and two expensive watches.
But a fireproof document box had been emptied onto the rug.
Inside it Daniel kept property inspection notes, handwritten project calculations, and old acquisition files.
Nothing valuable to a burglar.
Very valuable to someone who knew his work.
The officer asked about the alarm.
Daniel opened the security app.
The system had been disabled forty-three minutes before he arrived.
Using Vanessa’s personal code.
Daniel turned toward her.
“How did they get in?”
Vanessa’s lips parted.
No answer.
“Did you let them in?”
“I didn’t know what they were going to do.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Emma began crying again.
Daniel stopped himself.
This conversation could not happen over his daughter.
He carried Emma downstairs, called his sister Megan to come stay with the children, then returned to the kitchen.
Vanessa sat at the table with both hands wrapped around a glass of water she wasn’t drinking.
Daniel remained standing.
“Start talking.”
Vanessa looked toward the hallway where Emma had disappeared.
“Aaron called me this afternoon.”
“Why?”
“He said Eric needed something.”
“What?”
“I thought it was paperwork.”
“You disabled the alarm.”
“Yes.”
“You let them inside.”
“Yes.”
Daniel felt his stomach turn.
“And then my brother threatened my daughter while you put my baby inside a washing machine?”
Vanessa’s face collapsed.
“They weren’t supposed to touch the kids.”
May you like
Daniel stared at her.
That was not the sentence an innocent person would have said.
