Chapter 4 - The Detective at the River
I did not sleep.
At 4:10 in the morning, I sat at the kitchen table while Noah slept on the couch with Lucy’s unicorn mitten still on one hand.
Detective Alvarez stood across from me.
“You think I wrote that card?”
“No.”
“You think Eric did?”
“Yes.”
“Then you think he was warning you about me.”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“That makes two of us.”
She did not become defensive.
That frightened me more.
Alvarez opened the original case file.
“Five years ago, I was not the lead river investigator.”
“What?”
“Lieutenant Paul Givens was.”
I remembered him.
Tall. Gentle voice. Gray mustache.
He had been the one who told me the search was becoming a recovery.
Alvarez continued.
“He retired eight months after the disappearance.”
“Where is he?”
“Florida, supposedly.”
“Supposedly?”
“His pension checks go to a Connecticut bank.”
Noah appeared in the doorway.
“Paul?”
We both turned.
“You know that name?”
“Wade had a friend named Mr. Paul.”
Alvarez’s face hardened.
“What did he do?”
“He brought groceries. Sometimes medicine.”
“Did he hurt you?”
Noah stared at the floor.
“He scared us.”
Us.
The word mattered.
“Who else was there?”
Noah hesitated.
“A girl named Daisy. And a little kid Wade called Peanut.”
My stomach twisted.
“How old?”
“Daisy was maybe twelve. Peanut was little.”
Alvarez immediately called the task force.
Noah began breathing too fast.
I crouched several feet away.
“You’re not in trouble.”
“He said if I told, Daisy would pay.”
“You did the right thing.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No. But we can try to make it right.”
Lucy came downstairs dragging a blanket.
She wrapped it around Noah’s shoulders.
“Christmas rule,” she said.
“What rule?”
“Nobody gets cold in our house.”
I had never established that rule.
I decided it was now permanent.
By noon police found Paul Givens.
Not in Florida.
He lived forty minutes away under his middle name.
He confessed after investigators showed him Wade’s financial records.
Givens had falsified portions of the river search.
He claimed Wade paid him to steer investigators away from a service road where witnesses had seen Eric’s vehicle.
“Where is Eric?” I demanded through the interview-room glass.
Givens refused to answer.
Then Alvarez entered the room and placed a photograph of Noah on the table.
Givens stared at it.
“He got away?”
“Yes.”
Givens laughed.
Not happily.
Nervously.
“Then Wade is finished.”
“Why?”
“That boy knows the route.”
Noah had insisted he did not.
Givens explained.
Every time Wade moved the children, he made Noah wear headphones and keep his head down.
But Eric taught Noah a game.
Count turns.
Count bridges.
Count train horns.
A four-year-old’s game had become a map.
When I asked Noah, he looked ashamed.
“Dad told me never to tell.”
“Why?”
“He said only tell Mom when you see the silver airplane.”
I showed him my necklace.
His eyes widened.
He began counting.
“Left. Long road. Train twice. Bridge. Right. Bells.”
Church bells.
Alvarez mapped every route from the Hollis property matching those clues.
Three possibilities.
One ended near a Christmas tree farm.
The farm belonged to Wade Mercer’s sister.
Police arrived at dusk.
They found Daisy.
Alive.
Cold, frightened, and hiding in a storage shed.
They found the younger child too.
But Eric was gone.
Daisy told police a man had taken him that morning.
“Wade?”
She shook her head.
“Old man.”
“Paul?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Daisy looked at me.
“He said he was Noah’s grandfather.”
Eric’s father had been dead for eleven years.
Then Margaret called me.
May you like
She was sobbing.
“Katherine, there’s something about Eric’s father I never told you.”
