Chapter 2 - THE LITTLE GIRL BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR
“Matt?”
The voice came from somewhere above me.
Small.
Shaking.
Alive.
I released just enough pressure on the man beneath me to keep him conscious.
“I’m here, Emma.”
The drunk man’s eyes widened.
“You know her?”
I looked down at him.
“Unfortunately for you.”
He tried to twist free.
I pushed him flat against the hardwood.
Behind me, Sarah still hadn’t moved.
Blood darkened the side of her face.
I wanted to go to Emma.
I wanted to check Sarah again.
And I wanted to make the man beneath me understand exactly what kind of mistake he had made.
Isabella’s voice lived somewhere inside all three impulses.
Help kids when they’re scared.
Not punish people when I’m angry.
That distinction had taken me years to learn.
I pulled out my phone.
“Vincent.”
He answered immediately.
“You said no backup.”
“I changed my mind.”
That alone told him everything.
“Address?”
I sent it.
“Ambulance too.”
“Police?”
I looked at the man beneath me.
His name, I would learn later, was Eric Dalton.
Thirty-eight.
Two prior domestic disturbance calls.
No convictions.
A man who had learned exactly how much terror he could create before anyone forced him to stop.
“Yes,” I said. “Police.”
Eric laughed.
“You calling cops?”
“You sound surprised.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be some tough guy?”
That made me still.
He knew something.
Not my face, maybe.
But something.
“Who do you think I am?”
His smile disappeared.
Before he could answer, Emma cried upstairs.
“Matt?”
“I’m coming.”
I zip-tied Eric’s wrists with restraints I kept in the car.
That probably said more about my life than I wanted to examine.
Then I ran upstairs.
Three doors.
Bathroom.
Bedroom.
A smaller room at the end of the hall.
Locked.
“Emma?”
Silence.
Then:
“What did I tell you about Mama?”
My chest tightened.
“She makes chocolate chip cookies.”
“And?”
“Reads stories every night.”
A lock clicked.
The door opened two inches.
One brown eye appeared.
Then half a frightened face.
Emma Peterson was eight years old.
Dark blond hair tangled around her cheeks.
Purple pajamas.
Bare feet.
Blood on one sleeve.
Not hers.
She looked at me.
“You’re Matt?”
“Yes.”
“You’re old.”
I almost laughed.
“I’m thirty-nine.”
“That’s old.”
“Fair.”
She opened the door.
Then immediately looked behind me.
“Where is he?”
“Downstairs.”
“Is he dead?”
“No.”
The disappointment in her face was alarming.
I crouched.
“Your mother needs an ambulance.”
Emma’s whole body changed.
“Mama.”
“She’s alive.”
“You promise?”
I almost said yes.
Then stopped.
I had promised too many things beside hospital beds.
“I checked her pulse.”
Emma stared.
“She’s alive right now.”
That was the truth.
She nodded.
Then her knees gave out.
I caught her.
She did not cry.
Not at first.
She wrapped both arms around my neck and held on so tightly I could feel her heart hammering through her chest.
“I thought he killed her.”
“I know.”
“I texted Grandma.”
My eyes opened.
“What?”
“I thought it was Grandma.”
She pulled back.
“She changed her number last month. Mama wrote the new one on the refrigerator, but I remembered it wrong.”
One digit.
One wrong digit had sent her message to me.
Boston was full of millions of phones.
And Emma had reached mine.
I did not believe in much.
That tested me.
Sirens approached outside.
Emma stiffened.
“Don’t let them take me.”
“Who?”
“The police.”
“Why would they?”
“Eric says if I tell, they’ll put me in foster care because Mama lets bad men in the house.”
My jaw tightened.
Of course he had told her that.
Fear worked best when a victim believed rescue was another punishment.
“Emma.”
She looked at me.
“Eric lies.”
“How do you know?”
“Because men like him always tell children they’re responsible for adult mistakes.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You know bad men?”
“Yes.”
A lot.
She accepted that answer.
We went downstairs.
Sarah made a sound.
Emma broke from me.
“Mama!”
I caught her before she reached the blood.
“Let the paramedics come first.”
“I want her.”
“I know.”
The front door opened.
Vincent entered first.
He saw me holding a child and stopped like he had walked into the wrong building.
Behind him came paramedics.
Then police.
Vincent stared at Eric.
“Who’s that?”
“Problem.”
“Want me to—”
“No.”
One word.
He understood.
Police took Eric.
He shouted at Sarah.
Called her names.
Told officers she was crazy.
Said she attacked him.
Then Emma stepped forward.
“She didn’t.”
Everyone turned.
The child’s voice shook.
“He punched Mama because she hid my backpack.”
Eric went quiet.
One officer crouched.
“Why did she hide your backpack?”
Emma looked at him.
“So he couldn’t make me leave.”
My skin went cold.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Emma looked at me.
“He said we were going somewhere tonight.”
Eric shouted:
“Shut up!”
That was a mistake.
Two officers immediately moved him toward the door.
Emma’s face crumpled.
I crouched again.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he pack anything?”
She nodded.
“A black bag.”
Vincent was already looking around.
He found it beside the kitchen entrance.
Inside:
Cash.
Two passports.
One belonged to Eric Dalton.
The other—
Sarah Peterson.
There was also a child’s birth certificate.
Emma’s.
A loaded handgun.
Three prepaid phones.
And a photograph.
Vincent handed it to me.
The picture showed Sarah standing beside a man outside a courthouse.
Taken years earlier.
On the back, someone had written:
SHE STILL HAS THE FILES. DALTON KNOWS WHAT TO DO.
I stared.
“Emma.”
“Yes?”
“Has Eric lived here a long time?”
“Four months.”
“Your mother’s boyfriend?”
Her expression hardened.
“She doesn’t call him that.”
“What does she call him?”
Emma swallowed.
“A mistake.”
The paramedics loaded Sarah onto a stretcher.
Emma followed.
I went too.
At Massachusetts General, doctors took Sarah into surgery.
Head trauma.
Broken ribs.
Internal bleeding.
Emma sat in a plastic chair wearing my suit jacket because nobody had remembered a coat.
Vincent stood ten feet away pretending not to stare.
Then a nurse approached.
“Mr. Peterson?”
“No.”
“Are you family?”
“No.”
She looked at Emma.
“Who is he?”
Emma immediately answered:
“He’s Matt.”
The nurse waited.
Apparently that was not legally useful.
I called a lawyer I trusted.
Then child services arrived.
Emma grabbed my hand so quickly it hurt.
“No.”
I looked at the social worker.
A woman named Rebecca Shaw.
Calm face.
Forties.
Not easily intimidated.
Good.
“Her mother is in surgery,” she said gently. “We need to identify safe family placement.”
Emma whispered:
“Grandma.”
“Name?”
“Linda Peterson.”
Rebecca made calls.
Linda was alive.
In Rhode Island.
Driving north immediately.
Emma relaxed by half an inch.
Then Detective Hannah Cole approached.
She carried the photograph from Eric’s bag.
“Mr. Reichi?”
There it was.
Emma looked at me.
“Reichi?”
The detective studied me.
“You were the caller?”
“Yes.”
“You restrained Mr. Dalton?”
“Yes.”
“You want to explain why a nightclub owner happened to be first on scene?”
“Wrong number.”
She stared.
I showed her the texts.
She read them.
Her expression changed.
Then she looked toward Emma.
“Hell of a wrong number.”
“Yes.”
Detective Cole handed the photograph back.
“Do you know the man standing beside Sarah?”
I looked again.
The courthouse steps.
Sarah younger.
The man beside her was middle-aged.
Dark hair.
Federal suit.
Something about him bothered me.
“No.”
Detective Cole turned it over.
“We identified him.”
“Who?”
“Assistant U.S. Attorney David Navarro.”
My stomach dropped.
Navarro.
That name I knew.
He had prosecuted organized-crime cases across New England fifteen years ago.
Including one case involving my old neighborhood.
Including the shooting that killed Isabella.
I stood.
“What does Sarah Peterson have to do with Navarro?”
Cole studied me.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
Before I could answer, the surgical doors opened.
A doctor approached.
Emma stood.
“How’s Mama?”
The doctor looked at her, then Rebecca, then me.
“She survived surgery.”
Emma started crying.
Finally.
I caught her before she hit the floor.
The doctor continued.
“She’s stable, but there’s something else.”
“What?”
“When she regained consciousness briefly before surgery, she kept repeating a name.”
I looked at him.
“Whose?”
He checked his notes.
“Michael Rodriguez.”
Everything inside me stopped.
No one in that hospital knew that name.
No one except Vincent.
Emma looked up at me.
“Who’s Michael?”
I could not answer.
May you like
Because Sarah Peterson—the woman I had never met until I found her bleeding on a living-room floor—had just spoken the name I buried twenty years ago.
My name.
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