Chapter 2 - What Hailey Heard
The ambulance crew wanted Hailey taken to the hospital.
George agreed before anyone finished asking.
He rode beside her.
She refused to release his hand.
The paramedic examined the red marks on her wrists where she had apparently pushed repeatedly against the interior latch.
“No major injuries,” he said quietly. “But she’s frightened.”
George looked at Hailey.
Frightened was too small a word.
She sat wrapped in a gray blanket, staring at the ambulance doors every time the vehicle slowed.
“Is he following us?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“He’s with the police.”
Hailey looked at George’s swollen cheek.
“Did he hurt you?”
George forced a smile.
“I’ve had worse shaving accidents.”
She did not smile.
George stopped pretending.
“Yes. He hit me.”
“Because of me.”
“No.”
Her eyes lowered.
“Hailey, look at me.”
She did.
“What Nathan did is Nathan’s responsibility. Not yours.”
Her lower lip trembled.
George had known her since the morning she was born.
She had been a loud baby, a fearless toddler and an endlessly curious little girl who once took apart a television remote because she wanted to know how buttons “sent invisible instructions.”
Now she looked as if she were measuring every word before allowing it out.
George hated Nathan for that more than he hated him for the slap.
At St. Catherine’s Hospital, doctors examined Hailey while Detective Maya Torres waited outside.
Laura was already there.
George’s daughter occupied a room on the fifth floor after what everyone had been calling a staircase accident.
Three nights earlier, Laura had fallen at home.
Nathan claimed he had been in another room.
Laura remembered arguing with him and then waking inside an ambulance.
She had a concussion, a fractured wrist and bruising along one shoulder.
George had accepted Nathan’s explanation because Laura herself had not been certain.
Now he felt sick.
Torres entered the waiting room.
“Mr. Mercer?”
George stood.
“Yes.”
“We found several items in the SUV that concern us.”
His chest tightened.
“What?”
“A duffel bag containing clothing for Mr. Cole and Hailey. Approximately eighteen thousand dollars in cash. Two phones. Hailey’s passport.”
George stared.
“And?”
“A notarized document titled Temporary Delegation of Parental Authority.”
George frowned.
“I’m not familiar with it.”
“It appears to give Mr. Cole authority to travel with Hailey and make certain decisions on Laura’s behalf.”
“Laura signed that?”
“That is what the document says.”
“When?”
Torres studied him.
“Yesterday.”
George felt the blood leave his face.
“Laura was here yesterday.”
“We know.”
“She could barely hold a cup.”
Torres nodded.
“That’s one of the problems.”
George sat slowly.
“Where was Nathan going?”
“We found a reservation for a rental house near Asheville, North Carolina.”
They were in Virginia.
“Why Asheville?”
“We don’t know yet.”
George looked through the glass window toward Hailey.
“She said Nathan needed Laura to sign something after he took her.”
“We’ll speak with Hailey using a child forensic interviewer. We don’t want to question her repeatedly.”
George nodded.
“Of course.”
Torres hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
George looked at her.
“Mr. Cole told officers he was taking Hailey away because you presented a danger to her.”
George stared.
“He said what?”
“He alleges you’ve become unstable since your wife died and that Laura expressed concern about leaving Hailey alone with you.”
George almost stood.
“That is absurd.”
“I’m not saying I believe it.”
“He hit me while my granddaughter was locked in his trunk.”
“And that is part of the evidence.”
George rubbed a hand across his face.
Nathan was already building another story.
He always had a story.
Ten minutes later, a nurse came for George.
“Your granddaughter wants you.”
Hailey was sitting on the examination bed.
Torres entered with a woman named Dr. Elena Brooks, a child advocacy specialist.
George stayed near the wall.
Dr. Brooks spoke softly.
“You don’t have to remember everything today.”
Hailey nodded.
“Can you tell me how you got into the back of the SUV?”
Hailey’s eyes moved toward George.
He gave her a small nod.
“Nathan said we were going to see Mommy.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Then what happened?”
“He told me to put my backpack in the back.”
Hailey swallowed.
“When I leaned in, he pushed me.”
George’s hands clenched.
“He said if I screamed, Mommy would get in trouble.”
Dr. Brooks kept her voice neutral.
“What kind of trouble?”
“He said she stole money.”
George looked at Torres.
Hailey continued.
“I told him Mommy doesn’t steal.”
“What did Nathan say?”
“He said everybody steals when they’re scared.”
Hailey rubbed her fingers together.
“Then he got a phone call.”
“What did you hear?”
Hailey closed her eyes.
“He said, ‘Once the girl is gone, Laura signs the confession. Then Mercer has no choice.’”
George stopped breathing.
“Mercer?”
Hailey nodded.
“That’s our name.”
Dr. Brooks gently redirected her.
“Did he say anything else?”
“Yes.”
Hailey opened her eyes.
“He said somebody had to destroy the blue folder before the police found it.”
Torres leaned forward.
“Where did you hear that?”
“In the garage.”
“When?”
“Before Grandpa came outside.”
George looked at Torres.
“What blue folder?”
“I don’t know,” Hailey whispered.
George suddenly remembered something.
Laura had called him four days earlier.
She had asked an odd question.
Do you still keep old vendor records in paper files?
George had laughed and told her everything had been digitized years ago.
Laura had sounded disappointed.
He had been too busy to ask why.
His phone rang.
The hospital number displayed.
A nurse from the fifth floor.
George answered.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“Your daughter is awake and asking for you.”
George stood.
“She’s asking about Hailey.”
He looked toward his granddaughter.
“Tell her Hailey is safe.”
There was a pause.
Then the nurse said something that made George’s heart begin pounding again.
“She’s also asking us not to allow her husband into the hospital.”
George looked at Torres.
“Why?”
May you like
The nurse lowered her voice.
“Because Mrs. Cole says she remembers what happened on the staircase.”
