Chapter 9 - The Place Nadine Planned to Run
The Cincinnati apartment changed the investigation.
Not because renting an apartment was illegal.
Because Nadine had told police she never intended to leave Dublin.
The lease suggested otherwise.
Grant’s attorney cautioned him again.
“Don’t build your own theory faster than the evidence.”
So Grant waited.
It was one of the hardest things he had ever done.
He went to work remotely.
Took Piper to preschool.
Attended her counseling appointments.
Learned that she hated grape jelly now and only wanted strawberry.
At night, she sometimes woke crying and asked whether Tuesday was “truck day.”
Grant started checking the sanitation schedule before breakfast.
He hated himself for doing it.
He hated more that Piper noticed.
One morning she said, “Daddy, you don’t have to look.”
Grant closed the city app.
“No. I don’t.”
Meanwhile, the wider family began dividing.
Elaine wanted Grant to accept that Nadine had “broken down.”
Claire wanted Nadine nowhere near Piper again.
Nadine’s sister, Heather, contacted Grant through attorneys and said the family was worried Nadine might harm herself.
Grant took that seriously.
He passed the concern to Nadine’s attorney.
But he did not go to her.
That boundary cost him.
For nearly four years, he had been the person Nadine called when panic overtook her.
Now he had to accept that helping her could not require exposing Piper to her again.
The Cincinnati property manager later confirmed Nadine had toured the apartment alone.
She told him she was separating from her husband.
She planned to move “after a family situation was resolved.”
The phrase was documented in his ordinary leasing notes because he had been deciding whether to waive part of the deposit.
No dramatic confession.
Just paperwork made before anyone knew it would matter.
Then Paige called Grant’s attorney with another detail.
Nadine had asked Paige for a job reference in Cincinnati.
Paige refused after learning what happened to Piper.
But before the incident, Nadine had told her:
“Once Grant has to deal with Piper by himself, he’ll understand what I gave up for him.”
Grant sat with that sentence for an entire night.
It did not fit his current theory.
If Nadine meant to disappear, why would she expect Grant to understand anything later?
If she wanted Piper permanently gone, why pack the child’s pajamas, coat and stuffed rabbit?
Those details suggested something else.
Something still cruel.
Something more calculated than abandonment.
Grant returned to the photograph police had taken of Piper’s backpack.
Inside one outer pocket was a folded sheet of paper.
An address.
May you like
Claire’s address.
Nadine had written it by hand.
