“They left this morning,” I said. “They were walking down the street.”
Laura’s knees buckled.
“He found out.”
Detective Vasquez caught her arm.
“Found out what?”
“The copies.”
I looked at the flash drive in my hand.
“Copies?”
Laura began crying.
Mia and Ben had not hidden one drive.
They had hidden 12.
One under a bush at my house.
One behind Mrs. Alvarez’s mailbox.
One inside the loose stone wall near Mr. Patel’s garage.
Others were spread along the street.
The children had been placing them every Sunday for nearly three months.
That was what they were really doing.
The trash bag was a disguise.
They picked up enough litter to make the routine look innocent, then hid a drive at one house each week.
“Why so many?” I asked.
Laura covered her mouth.
“Because Rick always finds things.”
She knew about the plan.
She had helped them make the first recording after he threatened them at the cabin.
But she had not wanted the children involved.
Mia refused to stop.
“If he controls your phone and the house,” she told her mother, “we need to put the truth where he doesn’t know to look.”
The drives were hidden with neighbors the children believed were kind.
People who waved.
People who brought cookies.
People whose houses had visible doorbell cameras.
My compliment to Laura about her thoughtful children had terrified her because she thought I had discovered the plan.
That was why she gave me the strange smile.
“Where is Rick?” Detective Vasquez asked.
Laura looked toward the road.
“He said he was taking them to breakfast.”
My stomach turned.
“He has them?”
“He must.”
A countywide alert went out within minutes.
Rick’s truck was located through a toll-camera image forty miles north.
He was heading toward the wooded area near an old hunting cabin owned by his uncle.
The same cabin Mia mentioned in the video.
Laura heard the location and stopped breathing.
“The hole.”
Detective Vasquez took her by both shoulders.
“We are going to find them.”
Police would not let us follow.
Laura sat in my living room wrapped in a blanket while officers searched her house.
I made tea no one drank.
Every few minutes, she asked whether anyone had called.
