Chapter 3 - The Bracelet by the Pump HouseVanessa recovered first.
“That isn't possible.”
Daniel kept the phone against his ear.
Marcus said something else, but Daniel barely heard it.
“Send me the log.”
“Daniel—”
“Send everything.”
He ended the call.
Vanessa stepped around the island.
“My laptop was downstairs. Anyone could've used it.”
“Anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don't know. Rosa. A contractor. One of the officers.”
“The officers arrived after Maya disappeared.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
Vanessa's face hardened.
“Don't talk to me like I'm stupid.”
“Then explain why security footage from the exact place Pearl keeps mentioning was deleted from your computer.”
“I can't.”
Daniel stared at her.
“That isn't an answer.”
“It is the truth.”
For a moment neither spoke.
Then Vanessa said, “Call Detective Reed.”
Daniel had expected denial.
Not that.
“What?”
“If you think I did something, call her.”
“You want the police here?”
“I want Maya home.”
Her voice cracked.
Daniel couldn't tell if it was genuine.
That terrified him more than anger would have.
He called Detective Nora Reed.
She arrived forty minutes later wearing dark slacks, a blue button-down shirt, and the expression of someone who had learned never to react before hearing all the facts.
Nora was in her early forties, compact, controlled, and impossible to charm.
She listened while Daniel explained the bird, Vanessa's reaction, and the deleted footage.
When he finished, Nora looked at Pearl, who had been returned to her patio perch.
“Your witness has feathers.”
Daniel didn't smile.
“She repeated sentences.”
“Parrots do.”
“Sentences somebody said.”
“That doesn't tell us who said them or when.”
Vanessa stood near the kitchen doors.
“So you think this is nothing?”
Nora turned to her.
“I didn't say that.”
“Then what do you think?”
“I think deleted security footage matters.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
Nora asked, “Where was your laptop three nights ago?”
“Kitchen desk.”
“Password protected?”
“Yes.”
“Who knows the password?”
“Daniel.”
Daniel shook his head.
“I don't.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“You did.”
“Two years ago.”
Nora interrupted.
“Anyone else?”
Vanessa hesitated.
That hesitation lasted only a beat.
Nora caught it.
“Mrs. Hale?”
“Our accountant sometimes uses the computer when he's here.”
“Name?”
“Grant Mercer.”
Daniel frowned.
“Grant doesn't use your laptop.”
“He did once.”
“When?”
“Last month.”
Nora wrote it down.
“Why?”
Vanessa's answer came too quickly.
“Printer issue.”
Daniel stared at her.
Nora noticed that too.
“Let's see the pool area.”
They walked outside.
Pearl watched them from the iron perch.
“Idiot,” she told Daniel.
Nora glanced over.
“Charming.”
“She learned that from my father.”
“Then your father had taste.”
Daniel would have laughed under any other circumstances.
Instead they crossed the patio.
Nora studied the pool, the deck, the hedges, and the equipment shed at the far end.
“What did Pearl say exactly?”
Daniel repeated it.
Nora walked slowly around the pool.
“Blue door?”
“Yes.”
There was no blue door anywhere in sight.
The equipment shed had cedar siding.
The mansion doors were white.
The pool house doors were glass.
Nora crouched beside a drainage grate.
“Pool system is where?”
Daniel pointed beyond the hedge.
“Pump house.”
They followed the path.
Vanessa remained behind.
Daniel noticed.
“Coming?”
“I don't know anything about pool equipment.”
“Neither do I.”
Nora said nothing.
Vanessa reluctantly followed.
The pump house stood behind a row of ornamental trees. Daniel rarely entered it. A maintenance company serviced the filtration system twice a month.
The door was gray.
Inside, pipes ran along concrete walls.
The machinery hummed.
Nora walked between two large filtration tanks.
“Anything changed recently?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Not that I know.”
Vanessa said, “We replaced a pump in May.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You knew that?”
“I pay household bills.”
Nora crouched.
“What is this?”
Something glittered beside the base of a pipe.
Daniel moved closer.
A tiny silver bracelet lay half-hidden beneath dust.
His knees nearly failed.
He recognized the moon-shaped charm.
He had given it to Maya on her tenth birthday.
“Don't touch it,” Nora said sharply.
Daniel stopped his hand inches away.
“That's hers.”
Vanessa covered her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
Nora pulled gloves from her pocket.
She photographed the bracelet before lifting it carefully.
Daniel stared at Vanessa.
“When was Maya here?”
“I don't know.”
“You said she never comes back here.”
“She doesn't.”
Nora examined the floor.
There were scuffed marks in the dust.
More than one shoe size.
She followed them toward the rear wall.
Behind stacked chlorine containers stood an old metal cabinet.
Nora pushed it aside.
A narrow door appeared.
Painted blue.
Daniel couldn't breathe.
Vanessa whispered, “I didn't know that was there.”
Nora tried the handle.
Locked.
Daniel moved past her.
“Maya!”
Nora grabbed his arm.
“Daniel.”
He shouted again.
“Maya!”
Only machinery answered.
He struck the blue door with his fist.
“Maya!”
Vanessa stood several feet behind them.
Her face had turned gray.
Nora looked at her.
“You said you didn't know this door existed.”
“I didn't.”
“Then why are you looking at the lock?”
Vanessa's eyes snapped toward her.
“What?”
“You haven't looked anywhere else since we found it.”
Vanessa said nothing.
Nora tried the lock again.
“Mr. Hale, get me whatever keys service this building.”
Daniel ran toward the house.
Halfway across the path, his phone buzzed.
A message from Marcus.
He almost ignored it.
Then he saw the attachment.
SECURITY ACCESS DETAILS.
Daniel opened it while moving.
One line had been highlighted.
The pool-camera footage had been deleted at 2:14 a.m.
But seven minutes earlier, the same laptop had accessed another file on the home server.
An architectural drawing.
Daniel stopped.
The filename read:
POOL RENOVATION — LOWER CHAMBER / 2014.
And beside ACCESS USER was not Vanessa's name.
May you like
It was:
GMERCER.
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