Chapter 4 - What Blair RememberedThe child psychologist arrived before sunset.
Dr. Vivian Chen did not ask Blair what had happened in front of a room full of adults. She took her to the chapel kitchen, gave Biscuit a bowl of water, and placed three paper plates on the table.
“You can draw,” she said. “Or you can tell me. Or you can do both.”
Blair studied her. “Are you going to say I’m confused?”
“No.”
“Claire says I forget things.”
“Everyone forgets things. That does not mean every memory is false.”
Blair picked up a purple crayon.
For twenty minutes, she drew a blue door, a white building, and a woman with long brown hair. Beneath the woman she drew a red line and three black circles.
“What is this?” Dr. Chen asked.
“The road.”
“And the circles?”
“The tires.”
Dr. Chen did not interrupt. Blair drew a second picture. This one showed Claire beside a tall man with a scar across his cheek.
“Who is he?”
Blair’s crayon stopped.
“Mr. Voss.”
“Where did you see him?”
“In the room with Mommy.”
“What room?”
“The room behind the blue door.”
Daniel waited outside, unable to hear the questions but able to see his daughter’s face through the window. Every time Blair glanced at him, she tried to smile. The effort destroyed him.
Detective Brooks stood beside him. “We found the man from the security footage.”
Daniel turned. “Who is he?”
“Marcus Voss. Former private investigator. He worked for Claire three years ago.”
“Where is he now?”
“His truck was found near Harbor House.”
Daniel looked toward the darkening coast.
“Then we go there.”
“You do not go anywhere. We have a warrant team on the way.”
“That is my wife.”
“And this is an active investigation. If Claire knows you are moving, she may have an accomplice remove evidence or hurt Emily.”
The word hurt settled between them.
Daniel closed his eyes.
Inside the kitchen, Blair suddenly dropped the crayon.
“Mommy said not to trust the lady with the cake.”
Dr. Chen leaned closer. “What lady?”
“Claire.”
“When did she say that?”
“Before the storm.”
Daniel turned toward the window.
Blair’s first memory of the night Emily vanished had always been a thunderclap. She had remembered waking in a hotel room with Claire beside her, telling her that Mommy had gone to get help. She had remembered a cake on the table, though nobody had ever explained why.
Now the details began to return.
Her mother had been packing a blue suitcase. Claire had entered the bedroom. There had been shouting. Emily had told Blair to hide inside the wardrobe.
Then Claire had taken a cake from the refrigerator.
“Why did Claire have cake?” Dr. Chen asked.
Blair pressed the purple crayon against the plate.
“It was a trick. She put medicine in it.”
Daniel pushed through the door.
“What medicine?”
Dr. Chen raised a hand, but Blair had already turned toward him.
“Mommy ate one bite. She got sleepy.”
The world became soundless.
Daniel knelt beside her. “Did you see Claire give it to her?”
Blair nodded. “Then Mr. Voss came. He carried Mommy to the car.”
“Where did they take her?”
“The blue house.”
“Harbor House?”
Blair nodded again.
Detective Brooks went pale. “We need the warrant immediately.”
At that moment, a police officer entered the chapel.
“Detective, we found Marcus Voss.”
“Where?”
“Dead in his truck near the north road.”
The room tightened.
Daniel looked at Blair. “Who killed him?”
The officer shook his head. “We do not know yet. But someone left a message on the windshield.”
He handed Detective Brooks a photograph.
Written in red marker were the words:
STOP LOOKING FOR THE DEAD WOMAN.
Claire heard the message through the open door.
For the first time, she did not look afraid.
She looked furious.
That night, while officers escorted her from the cemetery, she turned toward Daniel.
“You think Emily is innocent because you need her to be,” she said. “But when you find her, ask what she did to our family.”
Daniel stepped toward her.
“If you touch my daughter again, you will spend the rest of your life regretting it.”
Claire smiled.
“You still do not understand. I am the only reason Blair is alive.”
Then she was gone.
Blair came to Daniel’s side and slipped her hand into his.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Can we take Mommy home?”
Daniel looked at the dark road leading toward Harbor House.
“We will,” he promised. “Even if we have to bring the whole world with us.”
Dr. Chen asked Blair to draw one final picture before they left the cemetery. Blair chose a black crayon. She drew the blue door, but she also drew a red ribbon tied around its handle.
“What is the ribbon?” Dr. Chen asked.
“Mommy tied it there so I would know which door.”
Daniel looked at Samuel. “Did you ever see a red ribbon?”
Samuel nodded slowly. “There was one on the service gate the night Claire came with the suitcase.”
“Why did you never mention it?”
“Because I thought it was trash.”
The drawing showed something else. A tiny yellow house stood behind the blue building.
“What is that?” Daniel asked.
“Where Mommy slept after the medicine made her sick.”
Detective Brooks bent over the page. “Harbor House has a guest cottage.”
“It was not on the property records,” Samuel said.
“Then someone removed it from the county maps.”
They searched old surveys that night. Cottage B had been listed twenty years earlier, before a fire supposedly destroyed it. The fire report carried the signature of Martin Hale, who had already been working for Daniel’s father.
Daniel felt the connection close around him.
“Martin knew about the cottage,” he said.
Brooks placed the report beside Emily’s photograph. “If it still exists, it may be where Claire moved her.”
Daniel wanted to leave immediately, but Blair was watching him from the chapel steps. He understood that chasing Emily could not mean abandoning Blair again.
He sat beside his daughter.
“I have to find Mommy,” he said. “But I will not disappear while I do it.”
Blair leaned against his shoulder. “Can Samuel come?”
“Yes.”
“And Biscuit?”
“Biscuit comes too.”
May you like
For the first time that night, Blair smiled.
They would leave at sunrise: a detective, a father, a cemetery worker, a frightened child’s drawings, and a dog who had already survived a locked cage.
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