Chapter 5: The Woman at the Fence
Daniel was at a diner called Patty's on Elm Cross Road, twelve minutes away.
Marsh drove.
Two more units followed.
I walked in first.
Daniel was in a corner booth, his back to the wall, facing the door.
Beside him, a little girl with dark curls was working through a grilled cheese sandwich with complete concentration.
She had his eyes.
Emma was across from them, coloring on a paper placemat with crayons the waitress had brought.
She looked up when I walked in.
"Daddy." She slid out of the booth and I caught her and held on.
I didn't say anything for a moment.
I just held her.
When I straightened up, Daniel was standing.
We hadn't been in the same room for almost three years.
He looked older.
Tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.
"Thank you," I said.
He nodded once.
"This is Lily."
Lily looked up from her sandwich.
"Hi," she said, and went back to eating.
Marsh came through the door behind me.
He looked at Daniel for a long moment, then pulled out a chair and sat down.
"Start from the beginning," he said.
"Everything."
Daniel talked for forty minutes.
He and Vanessa had met at a gym.
She had been warm, attentive, almost immediately serious about the relationship.
She had asked about his family early — his work, his brother, whether he had children.
At the time he'd thought it was normal.
"She met Emma once," Daniel said.
"At a birthday party for my cousin.
Emma was maybe two.
Vanessa spent the whole afternoon with her." He paused.
"I thought she was just good with kids."
"When did things change?" Marsh asked.
"About eighteen months in.
She started asking questions I couldn't explain.
About custody arrangements.
About what would happen to Emma if something happened to you." He looked at me.
"I told her it was none of her business.
She got quiet.
Two weeks later she ended it."
"And then she found Nathan," Marsh said.
"I don't know how.
I never told her his name.
I was careful about that." Daniel's jaw tightened.
"But she found him."
Marsh set his tablet on the table.
On the screen was a still from one of the memory card clips — a woman's hand adjusting something on a shelf.
Dark nail polish.
A thin silver bracelet.
"Is this her?" he asked.
Daniel looked at it.
"Yes."
Marsh turned the tablet off.
"We have a location on her car.
It was parked two blocks from the school until forty minutes ago.
It moved north on Carver Street." He stood up.
"I need both of you to stay here with the girls until I call you."
He was almost at the door when Daniel said: "There's something else."
Marsh stopped.
"The encrypted folder on the card.
There's a third set of clips." Daniel's voice was flat.
"Different house.
Different child.
Neither of them is Emma or Lily."
The diner was very quiet.
"How old?" Marsh said.
"Young.
Maybe three."
Marsh walked back to the table slowly.
He sat down again.
"How many clips?"
May you like
"I didn't count," Daniel said.
"I stopped watching."
