Chapter 4 - MRS. GREENE’S SECRETThe corrupt officer was Sergeant Alan Pierce.
Lily had seen him with Vincent behind the school gym.
Emma had photographed them together.
When Emma disappeared, Lily found the photograph hidden inside her locker.
She had kept it behind the loose panel in her desk.
Detective Brooks recognized Pierce immediately.
He worked in the same division that handled Emma’s missing-person report.
He was the officer who concluded she had run away.
Brooks moved the investigation outside the local department.
Only a small state task force and federal agents would be informed.
Lily sat between us in Mrs. Greene’s kitchen while we explained what would happen.
My neighbor placed hot chocolate in front of her.
Lily did not touch it.
Mrs. Greene looked at Brooks.
“I have more than photographs.”
We all turned toward her.
She led us to a small office at the back of her house.
Three monitors displayed views of our street.
The cameras covered her driveway, my front door, the alley, and part of the school route.
“You recorded Lily?” I asked.
“I recorded everyone.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Greene opened a drawer and removed an old police-dispatch badge.
Her husband had been a detective.
Twenty years earlier, their daughter had disappeared after leaving a shopping mall.
She was never found.
Mrs. Greene had spent the rest of her life noticing details other people ignored.
“I saw the same car returning,” she said.
“The SUV?”
“Yes.”
She showed us folders organized by date.
License plates.
Times.
Photographs.
In one image, Vincent stood beside Sergeant Pierce.
In another, Paula Dean entered the SUV.
Then Mrs. Greene displayed a photograph taken three days after Emma vanished.
A pale face appeared behind the tinted rear window.
Emma.
Alive.
Lily began to cry.
“When was this taken?”
“Five weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you show anyone?”
“I gave it to Sergeant Pierce.”
Brooks’s expression hardened.
“What did he say?”
“That the image was too unclear.”
“And you believed him?”
“No.”
Mrs. Greene had made copies.
She had also followed the SUV once.
It traveled north toward an abandoned children’s treatment center called Holloway House.
The building had closed seven years earlier after a fire-code violation.
According to property records, it now belonged to a shell company connected to Marcus Vale.
“We need a warrant,” Brooks said.
Lily stood.
“You don’t have time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Vincent said Emma stops being useful tomorrow.”
Brooks asked what Vincent expected.
“The envelope.”
“We have it.”
“No. He needs the original.”
“Why?”
Lily looked at me.
“Emma said there was a code in one of the documents.”
I opened the envelope.
One transfer sheet had a small handwritten sequence beneath the signature.
Brooks recognized it as a storage-unit number and access code.
The unit could contain the financial records Vale was trying to recover.
The police could raid Holloway House immediately, but if Emma had been moved, the network might vanish.
Brooks proposed using the envelope as bait.
Lily would arrange the exchange.
I refused.
“No.”
“Mom—”
“No.”
“I’m the person Vincent trusts.”
“He doesn’t trust you. He controls you.”
“That’s why he’ll come.”
Brooks looked at me.
“We can monitor every second.”
“You said there’s a corrupt officer.”
“Pierce will not know.”
Lily took my hand.
“I need to do this.”
“No, you need to be safe.”
“And Emma?”
The question stopped me.
Lily’s eyes were filled with guilt.
“She disappeared because she tried to protect me.”
“What happened?”
Lily had been the original target.
Vincent wanted access to my clinic files.
Emma discovered the plan and followed him.
When Vincent realized she knew too much, he took her instead.
“She told them I had no idea,” Lily whispered.
“She saved me.”
“You do not owe your life in return.”
“I owe her the truth.”
The operation was scheduled for the following afternoon.
Before leaving Mrs. Greene’s house, Lily finally drank the hot chocolate.
May you like
Her hands no longer shook.
Mine did.
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