Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN UPSTAIRS
Sarah awakened twelve hours after police brought her from the house.
Doctors found a sedative in her bloodstream that had not been prescribed to her. She was dehydrated and had a mild concussion, but the scans showed no permanent brain injury.
She asked for Emily immediately.
The hospital refused direct contact until child protective services and police assessed safety.
I did not fight that decision.
Emily sat in my lap in another room, drinking water through a straw and watching the transparent cup as though something might appear inside it.
“Is Mommy dead?”
“No.”
“Is she mad?”
“No one is allowed to be mad at you.”
“Jason said she picked him.”
I felt the sentence land inside me.
“What did he mean?”
“He said Mommy knew dogs listen better than daughters.”
Dr. Evelyn Brooks, the child-trauma specialist, stopped me from asking more.
“Let the forensic interviewers handle details,” she said. “Right now, answer safety questions.”
So I told Emily where she would sleep.
Who could enter.
Who could not.
That she would not return to the house.
That no adult order required her to stay somewhere dangerous.
Detective Ellis interviewed Sarah in the intensive observation unit.
Sarah asked to speak with me afterward.
We met with attorneys, a hospital social worker, and Ellis present.
Sarah could barely sit upright.
“I tried to get Emily out,” she said.
“When?”
“Friday night.”
I stared at her.
“She had already been in the cage?”
“Jason put her there Friday afternoon after she called you.”
“She called me?”
“He took the phone before the call connected.”
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
“He smashed my phone.”
“You had three days.”
Sarah’s eyes filled.
“I was locked upstairs from Saturday morning.”
“What happened Friday night?”
She looked down.
“I argued with him. He said the cage was temporary. I told Emily to apologize so he would open it.”
My chair scraped backward.
“You told her to apologize for being hungry?”
“I was trying to get her out.”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“What did you do next?”
“I waited until he slept. I found the spare key. He woke up before I reached the yard.”
The bruise near her hairline came from that confrontation.
Jason pushed her against the closet door, forced pills into her mouth, and locked her in the bedroom.
The hidden room allowed him to enter without opening the main door.
“Why was the gate chained before Friday?” I asked.
Sarah closed her eyes.
“He said you were stalking us.”
“I arrived for court-ordered pickup.”
“He changed the custody calendar on my phone.”
My paper schedule had been correct.
Jason had altered Sarah’s digital copy and convinced her the weekend belonged to them.
Sarah began crying.
“I should have checked.”
“Yes.”
She flinched because I did not rescue her from the truth.
Detective Ellis placed one of the recovered airline tickets on the table.
“Did you know about Belize?”
“No.”
“Did Jason have Emily’s passport with permission?”
“No.”
“Did he have yours?”
“It disappeared last month.”
Ellis asked about the pool.
Sarah remembered seeing black bags near the back door before she was sedated. Jason said he was clearing old household records.
Then she looked directly at the detective.
“His name is not Jason Miller.”
The room went still.
“What is it?” Ellis asked.
“I found a passport in the hidden room. Jason Wade.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“He said Wade was his birth name and Miller belonged to his stepfather.”
“Was that true?”
“I don’t know.”
Sarah’s hand began trembling.
“There was another name too.”
She wrote it on a hospital pad.
JONATHAN VALE.
Detective Ellis left the room.
Forty minutes later, she returned with a photograph from an old civil protection case in Oregon.
The man was younger.
The hair was different.
The eyes were Jason’s.
The petitioner had been a woman named Lauren Brooks.
Her protected child was a nine-year-old girl.
May you like
Ava Brooks.
The protection order described confinement inside a dog kennel.
