“You knew?”
“No.”
“How am I supposed to believe that?”
“You shouldn’t. Not yet.”
He stared at her.
Victoria took a breath.
“That’s why I came.”
“To clear your conscience?”
“No.”
“To buy mine?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Victoria looked toward his house.
Through the window, Mia was visible at the kitchen table, drawing.
Then Victoria looked back at Ethan.
“To ask you for help.”
He almost laughed.
“You cannot be serious.”
“Someone hid that report.”
“Call
your lawyers.”
“I did.”
“Call the police.”
“I will.”
“Then why me?”
“Because this morning someone accessed the archive and deleted seventeen files within six minutes of my reopening your case.”
Ethan’s anger faltered.
Victoria continued.
“And forty minutes later, somebody sent me a message.”
“What message?”
She handed him her phone.
Ethan read the screen.
Only one sentence.
**YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED ON THAT PLANE.**
Ethan looked up slowly.
Victoria’s face was pale.
“That’s not all.”
“What else?”
“The person who sent it attached a photograph.”
She swiped.
Ethan looked down.
His blood went cold.
It was a photograph of him.
Not from eleven years ago.
Not from the airplane.
From yesterday.
Ethan walking Mia into school.
Taken from across the street.
Mia’s pink backpack clearly visible.
Ethan stopped breathing.
Victoria whispered, “Whoever buried what happened to Rachel knows I found you.”
His eyes remained fixed on the photograph.
“And now,” Victoria said, “they know exactly where your daughter is.”
Inside the house, Mia suddenly screamed.
Ethan spun toward the door.
The sound came again.
“Dad!”
He threw the door open and ran inside.
Mia stood in the kitchen staring at the window.
Something had been pushed through the mail slot.
A small padded envelope lay on the floor.
Ethan stopped.
Victoria entered behind him.
“Don’t touch it.”
Mia pointed.
“It has my name.”
Written across the front in black ink were three words:
**FOR MIA CARTER.**
Ethan moved his daughter behind him.
Victoria called security.
The package was
