Chapter 15 - The Pickup List
“Tell me he’s still there.”
My voice sounded unfamiliar.
“He’s in the principal’s office,” Clara said. “The school refused to release him.”
My knees weakened so suddenly that Sarah caught my elbow.
“Is the woman still there?”
“No. She left when they asked for identification.”
Ramirez was already reaching for his phone.
He told me to stay where I was while officers went to the school.
Every instinct in my body wanted to run.
Sarah held my gaze.
“Leo is with adults who followed the plan. Let them secure the building before you arrive.”
I hated her for being right.
For eleven minutes, I watched the second hand on the conference-room clock.
Then Ramirez received confirmation that the school was secure.
Sarah drove.
I sat in the passenger seat with my phone in both hands, willing Clara to keep talking.
She had reached Leo.
He was frightened.
He wanted to know whether my car had crashed.
“No,” I said when she put him on. “I’m fine, sweetheart. You did exactly what you were supposed to do.”
“The lady knew Claire’s name.”
I closed my eyes.
“I know that scared you.”
“She said Aunt Clara couldn’t come because she was with you.”
“You were right to stay with your teacher.”
He was quiet.
Then he whispered, “I didn’t tell her our word.”
Months earlier, a family counselor had suggested a pickup password.
We had chosen pancake castle because Leo thought it sounded like a place Barnaby would enjoy.
The woman hadn’t known it.
At the school, Principal Denise Harper met us inside a locked entrance.
Leo ran into my arms so hard I nearly lost my balance.
I knelt on the tile and held him.
He smelled like crayons and playground dust.
Behind him, his teacher was crying silently.
“Thank you,” I told her.
She shook her head.
“He remembered the password before I even finished checking the list.”
The woman had carried a printed authorization bearing my name.
It named her as a temporary caregiver.
Her identification had supposedly been in her car.
When the office called me using the number in its own records, she slipped out through the front doors.
She had never reached Leo’s classroom.
I repeated that fact to myself until I could breathe normally.
Ramirez joined us twenty minutes later.
The security camera had captured her face.
Dark wig.
Large glasses.
A beige coat.
I recognized the shape of her mouth before the image sharpened.
“Melissa?”
Sarah leaned closer.
Melissa Grant looked older than she had in court, but there was no mistaking her.
I had not followed every detail of her sentence after she cooperated.
I knew she had received less time than Julian.
I had assumed she would stay far away from us.
Ramirez took the photograph back.
“We’ll verify her current status and locate her.”
That afternoon, Leo and Claire went with Clara to a place Ramirez approved.
I did not post.
I did not tell foundation volunteers where we were.
For once, even the kindest people in my life received only the information they needed.
At six, Ramirez called.
Melissa had been located at her sister’s apartment.
She had agreed to speak with investigators.
Two hours later, Sarah’s phone rang.
She listened, asked three short questions, and looked at me with an expression I had come to dread.
“What?”
“Melissa says she was told Leo was in danger.”
I let out a bitter laugh.
“So she forged my signature to rescue him?”
“She says Daniel Ross showed her messages supposedly from you. Messages asking her to help move Leo discreetly because you believed Julian’s associates were watching the school.”
“Why wouldn’t she call me?”
Sarah’s jaw tightened.
“Because she says the messages told her you couldn’t safely answer.”
I looked down at the floor.
Melissa had once believed Julian when he told her I had authorized a fraudulent signature over the phone.
Now, apparently, she had believed another man telling her I needed a forged school authorization.
Believing convenient stories had become her specialty.
“Does she know where Daniel is?” I asked.
“She claims she was supposed to take Leo to a parking garage.”
My stomach turned.
“Which one?”
“Near the county records building.”
Sarah listened again.
Then her face changed.
Melissa had provided one more detail.
Daniel had told her to park on the fourth level.
May you like
Beside a black sedan.
The sedan’s license plate belonged to Russell Pike.
