Mason’s shoulders finally lowered.
“That’s it.”
The officer placed the device into an evidence bag rather than turning it on. Whatever was stored inside would need to be preserved properly, and Mason’s tablet would be handled the same way once investigators could safely recover its contents.
By then, the paramedics had decided Lily needed immediate hospital treatment. As they prepared to take her outside, she reached toward Mason, and he hurried over to hold her hand.
“Are you coming?”
“I’m coming.”
I promised both children I wasn’t leaving them alone.
Before we left, an officer photographed the kitchen exactly as we’d found it: the glass of water near the sink, the prescription bottle, Brian’s keys, and the handwritten note. Ordinary objects that had seemed meaningless separately now formed a record of what had happened inside the house.
At the hospital, doctors began treating Lily while investigators spoke separately with Mason. I wasn’t allowed to sit through his formal interview, and although every instinct in me wanted to stay beside him, I understood why his account needed to come from him without anyone influencing it.
Several hours later, an officer returned with an update. Investigators had confirmed that Brian and Marissa hadn’t taken Mason to Florida at all, and there was no evidence Lily had ever been dropped off with her aunt.
The story we’d all been given had been false from the beginning.
I sat in the hospital hallway trying to reconcile that fact with the son I’d spent decades believing I knew. Being Brian’s father didn’t make the evidence disappear, and loving the boy he’d once been couldn’t excuse what the man he’d become had apparently done.
Then Mason emerged from his interview and came directly toward me.
“Did they get my recording?”
“They’re working on your tablet.”
He nodded, but he still looked worried.
“What is it, Mason?”
He glanced toward Lily’s hospital room before lowering his voice.
“The recording isn’t the worst part.”
My stomach tightened.
“What do you mean?”
Mason explained that before Brian locked him inside the closet, he’d overheard his father talking about what would happen when they returned Sunday. Brian believed Lily would be too confused to explain everything clearly, and he planned to tell anyone who questioned him that both children had misunderstood what happened.
That was why the note had been waiting for me.
Brian wasn’t merely hoping nobody discovered the truth.
He had already prepared the version he intended everyone else to believe.
Later that morning, investigators successfully recovered part of Mason’s recording. I wasn’t permitted to hear all of it, but I was told it supported enough of the children’s account that police were actively trying to locate Brian and Marissa.
Then an officer approached me with Brian’s handwritten note sealed inside an evidence bag.
“Mr. Carter, there’s something you should know.”
I looked at him.
“Your son’s vehicle was just located.”
“Where?”
The officer hesitated.
“At the airport.”
I immediately thought of Florida.
But then he continued.
“They never boarded the flight.”
I stared at him, confused.
“Then where are they?”
He looked toward Mason before answering.
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
Mason suddenly went pale.
Then he whispered something that made the officer turn toward him.
“They weren’t going to Florida.”
I crouched beside my grandson.
“How do you know?”
Mason tightened both hands around the sleeves of his shirt.
“Because I heard Dad tell Marissa where they were really going.”
The officer immediately stepped closer.
“Where, Mason?”
My grandson looked at me, terrified.
And then he gave us an address I recognized.