Chapter 8: The Last Place to Run
Two police cars reached the airfield before us.
Rachel drove while I watched Lily’s blue dot pulsing beside a hangar.
“Stay in the car when we arrive,” Rachel said.
“I’m not leaving Lily in there.”
“Anna, let the officers go first.”
A small plane waited on the runway with its engine running.
Victor stood beside it, one hand on Lily’s shoulder and the other holding her backpack.
“Lily!” I shouted.
She twisted toward me.
“Anna!”
Victor pulled her behind him.
“You’re violating the judge’s order,” Rachel called.
“Step away from the child.”
“I’m taking my niece somewhere safe.”
“Without clothes?” I asked.
“Without her medicine?
Without telling the court?”
Victor’s eyes moved toward the officers.
“Anna is unstable.
Daniel documented it.”
“Then why are you running?”
“I’m not running.”
The pilot climbed out of the plane and raised both hands.
“You told me this was a family emergency.
I’m not flying anyone.”
Victor threw Lily’s backpack onto the ground.
“You’ve ruined enough, Anna.”
“You ruined Peter’s car.
You stole from your company.
You frightened Daniel into silence.”
“Daniel took my money.”
“And preserved the proof.”
Victor stepped closer to Lily.
“If I go down, her father goes with me.”
“Her father already told the truth about himself.”
Lily looked up at him.
“My dad was scared, but he tried to fix it.”
“He used you,” Victor snapped.
“He used you to make that woman forgive him.”
“Don’t speak to her like that,” I said.
“You aren’t her mother.”
Lily pulled away from him.
“She’s the one who stayed.”
Victor reached for her arm, but an officer moved between them.
“Sir, keep your hands where I can see them.”
“I have legal custody.”
“Not after crossing the county line in violation of an emergency order.”
Victor pointed at me.
“She took company documents.
Arrest her.”
Rachel held up her phone.
“The court authorized preservation of those documents.
We also recorded your demand that Anna destroy evidence.”
Victor’s face lost its color.
“You recorded a private call?”
“You called the woman you were threatening.”
The officers guided Lily toward me.
She ran the final few feet and struck my chest so hard I nearly fell.
“I knew you’d find me.”
“You shared your location.”
“Dad showed me how.”
Victor lunged toward the backpack.
An officer caught him before he reached it, but the zipper tore open.
Daniel’s old phone slid across the concrete.
Claire stared at it.
“I put that phone in Rachel’s safe.”
Lily shook her head.
“That’s Dad’s other phone.
I found it under Uncle Victor’s bed.”
Victor struggled against the officer’s grip.
“She stole it!”
Lily crouched beside the phone.
“He was trying to break it with a hammer.”
Rachel pulled on gloves and lifted it carefully.
“Why would Victor destroy Daniel’s phone?”
Lily pointed to the cracked screen.
“Because Dad recorded him.”
At the evidence hearing two days later, the recovered phone played Victor’s voice clearly.
“You will keep quiet,” he said on the recording.
“Peter is gone, and if you speak, Lily may be next.”
Daniel answered, “If you ever go near my daughter, everything goes to Anna.”
Victor’s attorney stood.
“We request a recess.”
The prosecutor shook her head.
“We request that Victor Reed be taken into custody for witness intimidation, evidence tampering, financial fraud, and violating the child-protection order.”
The judge removed her glasses.
“Mr.
Reed, do you have anything to say?”
Victor turned toward me.
“You think you won?
Every time you look at Lily, you’ll remember why Daniel chose you.”
I stood beside Rachel.
“I’ll remember that he trusted me to finish what fear stopped him from doing.”
The officer placed restraints around Victor’s wrists.
He looked at Lily one last time.
“Your father betrayed his own brother.”
Lily took my hand.
“No.
May you like
He finally stopped protecting you.”
The courtroom door closed behind Victor, but the judge had not yet decided what his lies would cost him.
