Chapter 3 - THE SHERIFF WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Nathan Rowan had survived ten months in captivity.
He had survived cold concrete floors, broken ribs, hunger, and the sound of a steel door locking every night.
But nothing frightened him like the sight of his daughter looking toward the staircase while a corrupt sheriff called his name.
"Get behind me," Nathan whispered.
Ismerie obeyed.
Meredith tried to stand, but her knees buckled.
Nathan caught her.
Downstairs, Sheriff Harlan called again.
"Don't make this difficult, Nathan."
Nathan looked around the room.
One broken window.
A bathroom.
A closet.
No firearm.
No safe route down the hallway.
And a wife who could barely remain conscious.
"How many men?" he whispered.
Meredith shook her head.
"I don't know."
"Does he know about Cole?"
"He knows everything."
Nathan's jaw tightened.
He remembered the last evening before his disappearance.
He had been preparing to expose irregularities in county-managed children's trusts. Millions of dollars had been moved through a charitable foundation controlled by Charles Voss.
Twenty-six children.
Twenty-six accounts.
More than eighteen million dollars.
Nathan had found documents proving that court orders had been forged.
Then Meredith had called him, crying, and asked him to meet her at an abandoned quarry outside town.
That was the last evening he remembered being free.
Now, ten months later, he understood who had arranged the trap.
The floor creaked beneath heavy footsteps.
Harlan was climbing the stairs.
Nathan moved Ismerie into the bathroom.
"Sweetheart, lock this door."
She shook her head.
"Don't leave me."
"I'm staying right outside."
"That's what Mommy said yesterday."
His chest tightened.
He knelt.
"Listen carefully. If anyone besides Mommy or me opens this door, you climb into the bathtub and stay low."
"What if it's the other Daddy?"
"Especially him."
Ismerie began to cry silently.
Nathan brushed one tear from her cheek.
"You're allowed to be scared, honey. I'm scared too."
Her eyes widened.
"Grown-ups get scared?"
"All the time."
A sudden pounding came from downstairs.
Someone was at the front door.
Then a woman's voice rang through the house.
"Meredith? Nathan? It's June from next door!"
Nathan nearly sagged with relief.
June Alvarez had lived beside the Rowans for fifteen years. A retired school nurse, she had helped care for Ismerie when Meredith worked late.
And, unlike the sheriff, she had never once been connected to Voss.
Harlan shouted down the staircase.
"Stay outside, Mrs. Alvarez. This is police business."
"I saw a man climbing out of their bedroom window," June replied sharply. "And I heard a child screaming."
"Everything's under control."
"Then why is there blood on the porch?"
Nathan looked toward Meredith.
She nodded weakly.
"June will help."
Nathan moved to the staircase landing.
"Harlan!"
The sheriff appeared below.
He was broad-shouldered, with a gray mustache and a familiar smile that now seemed obscene.
He held his gun against his thigh.
"Well, I'll be damned."
Nathan gripped the banister.
"You knew I was alive."
Harlan shrugged.
"I knew you were supposed to stay where we put you."
"Where's Cole?"
"Your brother has a habit of making poor decisions."
"He poisoned my family."
Harlan sighed.
"That's a serious accusation."
"Call an ambulance."
"Not until we have a conversation."
From the front porch came June's furious voice.
"I already called 911! They're sending an ambulance!"
Harlan's expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Nathan noticed.
A public emergency call meant dispatch records.
Paramedics.
Witnesses.
People who might ask why a supposedly peaceful domestic situation involved a drugged woman and an injured child.
Harlan holstered his gun.
"Looks like we're all going to behave ourselves."
Nathan stepped down two stairs.
"Keep your hands where I can see them."
Harlan smiled.
"You're giving orders in your own house now? That's cute."
"I want my wife and daughter taken to a hospital."
"And I want to know what you brought back from the quarry."
Nathan went still.
Harlan tilted his head.
"Don't pretend you escaped with nothing."
He came up one stair.
"Ten months ago, you had documents that could destroy some very important people."
Nathan stared at him.
"They stole money from children."
Harlan's smile disappeared.
"They invested money that would otherwise sit in accounts for years."
"You emptied their accounts."
"Careful, Nathan."
Harlan looked past him toward the bedroom.
"Your little girl is already having a difficult day."
Nathan felt rage rise in his throat.
He stepped forward.
Then stopped himself.
Harlan wanted him angry.
Wanted him careless.
Wanted an excuse.
Instead, Nathan raised his voice.
"June! Please tell dispatch that my wife has been drugged and my daughter may have swallowed a sedative!"
Harlan cursed.
A moment later, June's voice answered.
"I heard you! They're sending another unit!"
For the first time, the sheriff looked uncertain.
Then he leaned closer and whispered.
"You don't understand what you've walked into."
Nathan kept his eyes on him.
"Then explain it."
"Voss isn't stealing money because he needs it."
Harlan's voice dropped.
"He's buying people."
Nathan felt a chill.
"Who?"
"Judges. Bank officers. County officials."
"Why?"
Harlan glanced toward the bathroom door.
"Because children with no one left to protect them are very profitable."
Before Nathan could answer, an ambulance siren sounded in the distance.
Harlan backed away.
His friendly smile returned.
"Now remember, Nathan. You've been missing ten months. You've got injuries, no identification, and a story about an identical brother who's supposed to be dead."
He straightened his uniform.
"Who do you think they're going to believe?"
Minutes later, two paramedics hurried through the front door.
Nathan carried Meredith downstairs.
June followed with Ismerie wrapped in a blanket.
The little girl was trembling, but she had not vomited or lost consciousness.
One paramedic asked what she had eaten.
"Just one bite," Ismerie whispered.
"Good girl," June said gently. "That's important."
Harlan watched them from the hallway.
"Mr. Rowan will be coming with me."
Nathan turned.
"For what?"
"Questioning."
"I'm not leaving my daughter."
Harlan took out handcuffs.
"Then I can add resisting arrest."
Ismerie screamed.
"No!"
She grabbed Nathan's shirt.
"Don't let him take you!"
Nathan crouched as far as he could.
"Look at me, sweetheart."
Her face was wet with tears.
"You just came home!"
"I know."
"You promised you wouldn't go!"
Nathan swallowed hard.
He could not make that promise again.
Not yet.
So he told her the truth.
"I'm going to fight very hard to come back."
Ismerie hugged him suddenly.
Her tiny arms locked around his neck.
Nathan closed his eyes.
For ten months, he had survived by imagining that hug.
Now it was being torn away.
Harlan pulled him upright.
"Time to go."
June stepped between the sheriff and Ismerie.
"Don't you dare touch that child."
Harlan smirked.
"Mrs. Alvarez, you should really learn when to mind your own business."
June looked him directly in the eyes.
"I've lived long enough to know that when a man says that, he's usually hiding something."
Nathan was placed in the back of the sheriff's SUV.
Through the rain-streaked window, he watched an ambulance carry Meredith away.
June took Ismerie into her car to follow.
Then Harlan started the engine.
"Your wife's smarter than you think," he said.
Nathan remained silent.
"She's been hiding something for months. Cole couldn't find it."
"What?"
Harlan glanced at him in the rearview mirror.
"A little piece of evidence."
Nathan's heart started pounding.
Harlan continued.
"Voss thinks she put it somewhere your daughter would never suspect."
A memory suddenly surfaced.
Ismerie's sixth birthday.
A small wooden music box shaped like a cottage.
A bright blue star on its lid.
Nathan had given it to her the week before he disappeared.
He remembered Meredith asking him to make sure its hidden compartment still opened.
At the time, he'd thought she was planning a birthday surprise.
Now he wasn't so sure.
Harlan watched his expression.
"There it is," he said quietly.
Nathan looked away.
Too late.
The sheriff smiled.
"You know where it is."
At the hospital, June sat beside Ismerie's bed while a doctor monitored her for possible sedative exposure.
The little girl was awake, frightened, and asking for her mother.
"Mommy's getting help," June reassured her.
"Is she going to wake up?"
"Yes, sweetheart. The doctors are taking good care of her."
Ismerie stared at her hands.
Then she whispered something unexpected.
"I hid the blue star."
June leaned closer.
"What blue star?"
"The one on my music box."
"Why did you hide it?"
Ismerie's lower lip trembled.
"Because the other Daddy wanted it."
June felt the hair rise on her arms.
"Where did you put it?"
Ismerie looked toward the hospital door.
Then she leaned close to June's ear.
"In the place where Mommy told me bad secrets go."
Before June could ask what that meant, her phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
She answered cautiously.
"Hello?"
A woman's voice spoke.
"Mrs. Alvarez? My name is Lena Ortiz. I'm an investigator with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office."
June straightened.
"How did you get this number?"
"Meredith Rowan gave it to me three weeks ago."
June stared.
"What?"
"She's been helping us investigate Charles Voss."
June looked at Ismerie.
The girl was now tracing circles on her blanket.
Ortiz continued.
"I need you to listen very carefully. Sheriff Harlan has no authority to keep Nathan Rowan in custody without notifying the state."
"Then help him!"
"We're trying. But right now your biggest responsibility is the child."
June swallowed.
"Why?"
There was a pause.
Then Ortiz said something that made her blood run cold.
"Because we just intercepted a message from Charles Voss."
"What message?"
"He's offering fifty thousand dollars to whoever brings him Ismerie Rowan."
June looked toward the door.
A woman wearing hospital scrubs had just entered.
She was carrying a small paper cup.
And she was smiling at Ismerie.
"Hello, sweetheart," the woman said. "Your daddy sent me."
June rose slowly.
Because the woman was holding Ismerie's pink stuffed rabbit.
May you like
The one Nathan had left behind in the bedroom.
And June had never seen her before.
