“Don't trust my mother.”
Dana's warning stayed in my ear after the call ended.
Agent Hayes took my phone before I could redial.
“Don't call her back.”
“She called me.”
“And if she's compromised, she may have done that under instruction.”
“She sounded afraid.”
“Fear doesn't tell us which side she's on.”
Detective Ortiz stood beside him, staring at the dead screen. Until that morning, Dana Mercer had been one of the few adults in the case I'd regarded as unquestionably safe. She had met Kaylee at the school. She'd arranged protection for both children. She'd known when not to push.
Now her mother had been identified as the person referred to as Doctor.
And Dana was missing.
“What exactly do you know about Elaine Mercer?” I asked.
Hayes looked toward the apartment door before answering.
“Enough that we're treating every location connected to the child-welfare response as potentially exposed.”
“That includes this one.”
“Yes.”
Mark came into the hallway.
“Mia's asking why everybody is whispering.”
Before either investigator could answer, my phone buzzed again in Hayes's hand.
A text.
Unknown number.
YOU HAVE THIRTY MINUTES.
Then a second.
ASK THE TEACHER WHERE SHE HID THE ORIGINAL.
Hayes swore softly.
“They think Mrs. Pruitt still has it.”
“Does she?”
“We don't know.”
“But you said the card in her hand looked real.”
“It looked like something. That doesn't establish anything.”
Ortiz took the phone from him and enlarged the earlier photograph.
Mrs. Pruitt's fingers were clenched around a white sliver. Kaylee stood beside her with her shoulders pulled inward, but her face was turned toward the camera.
Not toward the adults holding her.
Toward whoever would see the picture later.
Toward us.
I stepped closer.
“Her left hand.”
Ortiz zoomed in.
Kaylee's hand rested against her leg.
Two fingers extended.
Three curled.
“What?”
“I've seen Mia do that.”
“Do what?”
“When they play code games.”
Mark had joined us now.
He squinted.
“That could mean anything.”
“No. Mia and Kaylee make numbers with their hands when they don't want adults to hear them.”
Ortiz called Mia from the bedroom.
She came out holding the stuffed llama.
“Sweetheart, look at this photograph.”
She studied Kaylee.
“Don't focus on anything scary. Just her hand.”
Mia looked for less than two seconds.
“Twenty-three.”
Hayes frowned.
“What is twenty-three?”
“I don't know.”
“Why does that hand mean twenty-three?”
“Because two fingers up and three down.”
I stared at the picture.
“Could it be room twenty-three? Locker twenty-three?”
Mia shook her head.
“Maybe page twenty-three.”
“Page of what?”
She thought.
Then her eyes widened.
“The notebook.”
Every adult turned toward her.
“What notebook?” I asked.
“The one Kaylee took from Tasha.”
Mia said it as if we should already know.
“When?”
“Months ago.”
“Where is it?”
“She gave it back.”
“To Tasha?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Mia's mouth opened.
Then she stopped.
“She made me promise.”
“Mia, Kaylee is in danger.”
“I know.”
“Then the promise changes.”
She hugged the llama tighter.
“She gave it to Mrs. Pruitt.”
Hayes's expression sharpened.
“The card wasn't the only thing.”
“No.”
“When?”
“Before summer.”
“Did Mrs. Pruitt know what it was?”
“I don't think so. Kaylee said it was homework stuff.”
I crouched.
“What did the notebook look like?”
“Black. Little.”
“How little?”
Mia held her hands approximately six inches apart.
“Did you ever look inside?”
“One page.”
“What was on it?”
“Numbers. Names. Letters.”
“Twenty-three?”
She shook her head.
“I don't remember.”
Hayes called the team searching Mrs. Pruitt's house.
The house had already been processed once for the abduction, but now agents returned to the teacher's home looking specifically for a small black notebook.
At the same time, another team searched her classroom.
We were moved ten minutes later.
Nobody explained the destination until we were already inside an armored SUV.
Mia sat between Mark and me.
“Are we going to Kaylee?”
“No,” I said.
Her face folded with disappointment.
“Why not?”
“Because police have to find her first.”
“But she needs us.”
“I know.”
Outside, Briar Creek looked offensively normal.
A man walked his golden retriever.
A coffee shop opened.
Traffic moved toward Saturday errands.
Somewhere not far away, an eight-year-old girl and her teacher were being held.
The contrast made me furious.
Our new location was a federal field office two counties away.
No windows faced the public parking lot.
Phones went into signal-shielding bags.
Names were checked twice.
Hayes brought us into a conference room with a television mounted on the wall.
At 7:18, an agent entered carrying a clear evidence sleeve.
Inside was a black notebook.
“We found it.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Mrs. Pruitt's classroom.”
“Where in the classroom?”
“Inside a plastic tub labeled retired curriculum.”
I thought of Kaylee handing an object to a trusted teacher because she didn't know what else to do.
“What is page twenty-three?”
The agent opened a scanned copy.
Page twenty-three contained a column of initials.
Dates.
Dollar amounts.
Three addresses.
And beside several names, a small triangle.
Hayes pointed.
“This matches symbols found in Caldwell's private records.”
“What does the triangle mean?”
“We haven't confirmed it.”
Ortiz leaned over the scan.
“Look at the bottom.”
A handwritten note had been squeezed into the margin.
H HOUSE – REAL KEY IS NOT CARD.
Mark looked up.
“So the access card is another distraction.”
“Possibly.”
Mia tugged my sleeve.
“Kaylee knew that.”
“How?”
“She said the card wasn't the key.”
“When did she tell you?”
“Before I gave it to Mrs. Pruitt.”
“Then why give her the card at all?”
“She said grown-ups chase things they can see.”
Nobody spoke.
An eight-year-old had understood diversion better than most adults.
Hayes turned the page.
Page twenty-four had been torn out.
Carefully, not ripped in anger.
Removed.
“Who has that page?” I asked.
“Unknown.”
“Kaylee?”
“Possibly.”
At 7:44, a message arrived through the task force's monitored line.
Not to my phone this time.
A video.
Eight seconds.
Mrs. Pruitt sat in the metal chair.
Kaylee stood beside her.
A man's gloved hand entered the frame and placed a pair of pink sneakers on the concrete floor.
Not Kaylee's original shoes.
A different pair.
Newer.
Clean.
The symbolism was deliberate.
A voice off camera said, “Tell them.”
Kaylee looked into the lens.
“I don't have it.”
The voice asked, “Where is page twenty-four?”
Her face changed.
Barely.
But I saw it.
She knew.
“I don't know.”
The voice sharpened.
“Wrong answer.”
The video ended.
Mia started crying.
“Turn it off.”
Hayes killed the screen.
I pulled her against me.
“What does page twenty-four say?” Ortiz asked the document team.
“We can attempt indentation recovery from page twenty-three.”
“What does that mean?”
“If someone wrote on twenty-four while it was still attached, pressure may have marked twenty-three.”
A technician brought the original notebook into a lab.
For the next twenty-six minutes, nothing happened quickly enough.
I paced the conference room until Mark told me I was making Mia dizzy.
At 8:17, Hayes returned carrying a preliminary image.
Faint writing had been recovered.
Not everything.
Enough.
A location name:
BRIAR TREATMENT ANNEX.
Ortiz frowned.
“There is no Briar Treatment Annex.”
Hayes said, “There was.”
A county behavioral-health annex had closed eleven years earlier.
The property was sold.
Then resold.
The latest owner was a shell corporation connected to Dr. Elaine Mercer.
“That's where they are,” I said.
“Maybe.”
“You have a better option?”
“We move on evidence, not hope.”
“Kaylee gave us twenty-three for a reason.”
“I agree.”
Teams mobilized.
The annex sat forty-seven miles north, surrounded by overgrown woods and an abandoned service road.
Satellite images showed two buildings.
One main structure.
One maintenance shed.
At 8:42, Ortiz's phone rang.
She listened.
Then looked directly at me.
“They found Dana.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In her car.”
“What happened?”
“She was restrained.”
“By whom?”
“She says her mother.”
I felt the room shift.
“Do you believe her?”
“We're interviewing her.”
“Does Dana know where Kaylee is?”
“No.”
At 9:03, Dana appeared on a secure video feed.
Her hair was disheveled. One side of her face was bruised. A medic sat behind her.
“I need Claire.”
Hayes looked at me.
“You can speak.”
I stepped toward the microphone.
“I'm here.”
Dana exhaled.
“My mother knows Kaylee took the notebook.”
“We found it.”
“Not all of it.”
“Page twenty-four.”
Dana closed her eyes.
“She tore it out.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
“Dana, is the annex where they're holding her?”
Dana's eyes opened.
“You found the annex?”
“Yes.”
Her expression became fear.
“Don't go through the front.”
Hayes leaned forward.
“Why?”
“There is a basement intake corridor. My mother designed it for observation work years ago.”
“Observation of whom?”
“Children.”
My stomach turned.
Dana continued.
“She called it a resilience lab.”
Ortiz's mouth tightened.
“What kind of research?”
“Fear responses. Compliance. attachment disruption. She lost her institutional approval years ago.”
“Then continued privately.”
Dana nodded.
“She always believed regulators were cowards.”
“Did you know?”
“Not like this.”
“But you knew something.”
“I knew she had theories. I knew some of her methods were cruel.”
“Why didn't you report her?”
Dana looked away.
“Because she was my mother.”
The answer was weak and human and devastating.
“Did you give her protected addresses?”
“No.”
“Then how did she get them?”
Dana looked at Hayes.
“She mentored someone in county intake.”
A name followed.
Paula Vance.
A supervisor.
Ortiz immediately left the room.
Dana continued.
“Paula had access to placements, emergency lodging, investigator assignments.”
That explained too much.
Rebecca's address.
Our secure apartment.
Melissa's relocation.
All of it.
Hayes asked, “Is Paula involved willingly?”
“I think so.”
“Think?”
“My mother paid her.”
“Evidence?”
“Bank records in my mother's study.”
Hayes dispatched agents.
I asked Dana the only question that mattered to me.
“Why did you call me?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because I realized Kaylee had been trying to expose them long before Friday.”
“How?”
“She had been leaving clues.”
“The notebook.”
“Yes.”
“The card.”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
Dana swallowed.
“Her shoes.”
Nobody spoke.
“What about them?”
“The pink sneakers weren't random.”
Dana looked toward the medic.
“My mother used colors in her classification system.”
“What classification?”
“Children who resisted.”
My chest tightened.
“Pink meant what?”
Dana answered quietly.
“Persistent.”
I thought of Kaylee refusing to remove those shoes.
Protecting them.
Preserving them.
“What was inside?”
“I don't know.”
“You called me because of the shoes.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me immediately?”
“Because I didn't know whether my mother had access to your phone.”
It was the first answer that made complete sense.
At 9:27, the tactical team reached the old annex.
The live feed showed trees, broken pavement, cracked brick.
No movement.
No visible vehicles.
The front door stood slightly open.
Dana's warning repeated in my head.
Don't go through the front.
The team entered from the rear service corridor.
One room.
Empty.
Second room.
Empty.
A stairwell.
Locked.
They forced it.
The basement camera cut briefly in the concrete corridor.
Then returned.
One of the agents stopped.
“Possible victim.”
My breath stopped.
A woman sat against the wall.
Mrs. Pruitt.
Alive.
Her wrists were zip-tied.
Kaylee was not beside her.
Mrs. Pruitt kept saying one sentence.
“She made them follow her.”
“Who?”
“Kaylee.”
“What does that mean?”
Mrs. Pruitt shook so badly the medic couldn't immediately understand her.
“She ran.”
Kaylee had escaped the room.
Not the building.
She had deliberately drawn two captors away from Mrs. Pruitt.
A child had once again stepped toward danger so someone else could be safer.
At 9:41, agents heard movement below the basement.
Another level.
Not shown on county plans.
A concealed stairwell led down.
Hayes turned away from us to listen over his earpiece.
Then his face hardened.
“They found the observation rooms.”
Glass panels.
Restraint equipment.
Camera mounts.
Storage.
No Kaylee.
One door at the far end stood open.
Behind it was a narrow utility tunnel.
“Where does it lead?” I asked.
“Maintenance building.”
The tactical team split.
At 9:48, they entered the shed.
Empty.
The rear door opened onto woods.
Fresh footprints led north.
Adult.
Child.
Another adult.
Kaylee had been moved again.
But on the shed floor, agents found something.
A torn sheet of paper.
Page twenty-four.
Kaylee had dropped it.
The recovered page contained addresses.
Names.
A map.
And one word circled three times:
WATER.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: The Missing Page Pointed Toward the Water, but Kaylee Had Left a Trail That Only Mia Knew How to Read
The Sleepover Was Almost Over When I Realized Kaylee Was More Afraid of Removing Her Shoes Than Going Home
Part 5 of 35
