Chapter 9 - Grandma Says You’re Sick
I don’t remember getting into the car.
I remember Beatriz climbing into the passenger seat.
I remember shouting at her to get out.
Then she said, “I know where Celeste takes people when she wants privacy.”
I drove.
Detective Harper, the deputy assigned to Elena’s reopened case, followed two cars behind us.
“Where?” I asked.
“The old Mercer beach house.”
“That place has been empty for years.”
“Exactly.”
My phone buzzed.
A voice message from Isabella.
“Daddy?”
She sounded like she was trying not to cry.
“Grandma says you’re sick and angry because Mommy died.”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“She says I have to stay with her until you get better.”
Then Celeste’s voice in the background:
“Isabella, give me the phone.”
The message ended.
Beatriz stared at the dashboard.
“She used the same words on me.”
“What?”
“She told me Elena was unstable. Then she told me you were unstable. She makes everyone dangerous except herself.”
I looked at her.
“You still hurt my daughter.”
“I know.”
“Helping now doesn’t erase that.”
“I know.”
The beach house sat above a narrow cove forty minutes north of Malibu.
When we arrived, the front door was open.
Nobody inside.
On the kitchen floor was Isabella’s blue hair ribbon.
Then another near the back door.
“She’s leaving a trail,” I whispered.
Beatriz nodded.
As we followed Isabella’s ribbons down the path, I remembered tying the first one in her hair before school. She had complained that the bow was crooked. Elena had fixed it and told me I was banned from “advanced hairstyling.”
Now those ridiculous blue ribbons were leading me toward my kidnapped daughter.
“She knew you’d look for them,” Beatriz said.
“No.”
I picked up another ribbon from the gravel.
“She knew I finally would.”
That distinction hurt.
Isabella had spent months believing I would not notice what was happening. Now she was betting her safety on the hope that I had changed fast enough.
We followed the ribbons down a stone path toward the old boathouse.
Halfway there, Beatriz stopped.
“What?”
She reached into the lining of Isabella’s coat hanging over a fence post.
Her fingers came out holding a small GPS tag.
I stared at it.
“You put that there.”
She didn’t deny it.
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
“Why?”
“Celeste wanted to know where Isabella was when you traveled.”
My stomach turned.
“You tracked my child.”
“Yes.”
“And you brought us here knowing Celeste could see this?”
Beatriz’s eyes widened.
The tracker light was blinking.
Active.
We heard an engine below.
Celeste hadn’t brought Isabella to the beach house to hide.
She had brought her there to wait for us.
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