Chapter 16 - THE GIRL WHO DIDN’T DISAPPEAR
Danielle Price looked nothing like the nineteen-year-old in Margaret’s photograph.
She was thirty-five now.
Her hair was dark and cut blunt at her shoulders.
A pale line crossed the right side of her chin.
In the diner window reflection, she looked straight at the camera.
Not surprised.
Not afraid.
Almost as if she wanted to be seen.
Emily leaned closer to Rachel’s laptop.
“Who took the picture?”
“No metadata,” Rachel said.
Matthew was already calling someone.
Emily watched his face.
“No private army,” she said.
He covered the phone.
“I was calling a researcher.”
“That sounds like private army with glasses.”
Rachel looked down to hide a smile.
Matthew ended the call.
“Fine.”
Emily blinked.
“Fine?”
“Yes.”
“You’re getting irritatingly cooperative.”
“I’m trying something new.”
“It’s unsettling.”
Rachel enlarged the diner sign visible through the window.
MABEL’S.
Pike had mentioned a Mabel once in the van.
Emily called him again.
Still off.
She searched the restaurant name.
There were eleven Mabel’s within two hundred miles.
One was in North Harbor.
Of course it was.
They drove there with state investigators following at a distance.
Emily insisted on that compromise.
Matthew disliked it.
So did the investigators.
That made it feel approximately fair.
Mabel’s sat across from an abandoned ferry terminal.
The diner smelled like coffee, onions, and old vinyl seats.
Margaret and Pike were gone.
A waitress with a silver braid remembered them.
“Older woman. Grumpy man.”
Pike, definitely.
“Was there another woman outside?” Emily asked.
The waitress looked at the photograph of Danielle.
“Oh, Dee.”
Matthew inhaled sharply.
“You know her?”
“Sure. Comes in every couple weeks.”
“Where does she live?”
The waitress frowned.
“That’s not your business.”
Emily liked her immediately.
She stepped forward.
“My name is Emily Hale.”
The waitress looked at her bruised face.
Then at Matthew.
“Yeah. Television’s been having a day with you people.”
“I need to speak with Danielle.”
“Why?”
Emily glanced at Matthew.
He took one step back.
Good.
“Because she may know where a man named Graham Ambrose is holding one of my employees.”
The waitress’s expression changed.
“Graham.”
“You know him too?”
“Everybody around North Harbor knows Graham.”
“Not in a good way?”
She snorted.
“In no way at all.”
That sounded rehearsed.
Emily waited.
The waitress wiped the counter.
Finally she said, “Dee works at the marine supply shop on Pier Nine.”
Matthew looked toward the window.
Pier Nine was visible across the water.
The shop was closed when they arrived.
A handwritten sign said BACK IN TEN.
Emily knocked anyway.
Nothing.
Around the side, a narrow dock extended behind the building.
A woman stood at the end smoking a cigarette.
Danielle.
She did not turn when Emily approached.
“You walk loud in those shoes.”
Emily looked down at the donated sneakers.
“They squeak.”
“I heard.”
Danielle took another drag.
Matthew remained twenty feet away.
Danielle glanced back at him.
“Good boy.”
Matthew’s jaw tightened.
Emily almost smiled.
“You sent the picture?”
“No.”
“Do you know who did?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Danielle flicked ash into the water.
“Your aunt.”
Emily frowned.
“Why would Margaret send us a picture of herself?”
“To show you she had me.”
Emily looked toward the shop.
“Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“With Pike?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Danielle laughed softly.
“You ask questions like your dad.”
“You knew him?”
“He found me.”
Emily went still.
“When?”
“Three years after Carter’s father buried me with money.”
Matthew flinched.
Danielle saw it.
“Don’t worry, Matthew. I’m not going to make you perform guilt in public.”
He said, “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“That’s it?” Emily asked.
Danielle looked at her.
“No.”
She dropped the cigarette into an empty coffee can.
“That’s just the part he gets today.”
Emily understood more from that than from a speech about forgiveness.
“Why did my father find you?”
“He was looking into Ambrose.”
“Because of Hale Systems?”
“Because of your mother.”
The world narrowed.
“What did Ambrose have to do with my mother?”
Danielle looked toward the gray water.
“Evelyn Hale discovered his club was being used to compromise people.”
“Compromise?”
“Sex, drugs, hidden cameras, debts.”
Emily felt sick.
“Blackmail.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes just insurance.”
“Was my mother involved?”
“She was trying to expose it.”
Matthew stepped closer.
Danielle held up one finger.
He stopped.
She continued.
“Evelyn copied guest lists. Payment books. Camera logs.”
“Where are they?”
“Your aunt knows.”
“Why did everyone let me think my mother died in a car crash?”
Danielle’s face softened for the first time.
“Because the people she was running from were still watching your family.”
Emily’s throat tightened.
“Is my mother alive?”
Danielle looked at her for a long time.
Then she said, “No.”
The answer hurt in a clean, terrible way.
Emily nodded once.
“How did she die?”
Danielle looked down.
“Not in the crash.”
Emily waited.
“She lived for seven months after she disappeared.”
“Where?”
“Canada first. Then Maine.”
“Why didn’t she come back for me?”
Danielle’s eyes filled.
“She tried.”
Emily’s breath caught.
“What happened?”
“Somebody betrayed the safe house.”
“Who?”
Danielle looked past her toward Matthew.
Not at him.
Beyond him.
A truck had pulled onto the pier.
Danielle’s expression changed.
“Inside.”
“What?”
“Now.”
The truck doors opened.
Three men stepped out.
One carried a rifle.
Danielle shoved Emily toward the shop.
Matthew ran.
Gunfire cracked across the pier.
The shop window shattered.
Emily hit the floor behind a stack of rope.
Danielle crawled beside her and pulled a key from her pocket.
She pressed it into Emily’s hand.
“Pier Twelve. Red boat.”
“Why?”
“Because your aunt left something there.”
Another shot punched through the wall.
Danielle grabbed Emily’s sweatshirt.
“And because the person who betrayed your mother is still alive.”
Emily stared at her.
“Who?”
May you like
Danielle’s face went pale as footsteps entered the front of the shop.
She whispered, “Helen Walsh.”
