Chapter 9 - The Crash Report
Sarah talked.
Not because she trusted us.
Because she was terrified.
She had taken Caleb’s box from Ruth after receiving a message from someone claiming they could prove Darren had not caused Caleb’s death.
“They said Caleb was killed by a cop,” she whispered.
Collins’s face hardened.
“Who contacted you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Male? Female?”
“Male.”
“What did he want?”
“The flash drive.”
“Why take June?”
“I didn’t.”
I leaned toward the table.
“Then why was she in your car?”
Sarah stared.
“She wasn’t.”
I showed her the photo.
Her mouth opened.
“That’s my car.”
“Yes.”
“But that picture wasn’t today.”
Collins zoomed in.
June wore the same dinosaur shirt from school, but the paper star on her backpack was intact.
In the coffee shop, one point had been bent.
Old photograph.
Staged.
“Who had access to your car?” Collins asked.
Sarah looked sick.
“Martin.”
Her employer.
Attorney Martin Keene.
Darren’s old lawyer.
The man who had called her about Caleb’s death.
Collins left the room to make calls.
I stayed.
“Why didn’t you tell Emily?”
Sarah cried.
“Because she already thinks I ruin everything.”
“Did you?”
She flinched.
Good.
Sometimes shame needs its own chair.
“I thought I could fix it.”
“That sentence has buried more people than bad intentions ever did.”
She stared at me.
“You don’t know me.”
“No. But I know June.”
Her face broke.
Collins returned carrying a file.
Caleb Ross’s original crash report.
She laid it open.
“The investigating deputy was Officer Martin Keene.”
I stared.
“He was a cop?”
“Before law school.”
Sarah whispered, “Oh God.”
The crash report had photos.
Brake lines.
Road.
Guardrail.
Caleb’s truck.
One image showed a dark pickup parked far behind the wreck.
License plate unreadable.
But the side panel carried a company logo.
Pike Towing.
Darren’s uncle’s business.
Collins tapped the photo.
“Keene wrote that the truck belonged to roadside assistance.”
Sarah covered her mouth.
“He lied.”
“Yes.”
I asked, “Where’s June?”
Collins’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her face changed.
They had found the real June.
At a church daycare three miles from the motel.
Safe.
Terrified.
A woman had dropped her there claiming to be family.
Emily arrived twenty minutes later.
She nearly collapsed when she saw her daughter.
June buried her face in her mother’s chest.
Then she looked at me.
“I counted wrong.”
“No.”
I knelt.
“You counted enough.”
May you like
She shook her head.
“The lady knew the new word.”
