“Officer, this has gone far enough,” my mother declared, her voice ringing with the crisp authority she had used to govern our household for four decades. She descended the brick steps, ignoring me completely, aiming her gaze directly at Sergeant Miller, the second officer on scene. “My youngest daughter suffers from acute anxiety. She panicked because of Jenna’s theatrical accusations. There is no crime here. A misplaced toy found in a donation bin at the parish hall—that is all this is.”
“A donation bin?” Daniel took two strides forward, closing the distance between them until he was barely an arm’s length away. His voice dropped into a terrifyingly calm register. “This toy was in Caleb’s red nylon backpack when I dropped him off at the elementary school bus stop on March twelfth. He took it out of his pocket at breakfast. I watched him zip it into the front pouch. You are telling me a toy from my missing son’s sealed backpack ended up in a church donation bin, and your daughter just happened to wrap it up for my daughter on Christmas morning?”
“Daniel, you have been unstable since the boy disappeared,” my mother replied smoothly, not blinking, though a faint twitch jumped beneath her left eyelid. “Grief makes people imagine patterns where none exist. Nicole thought it was a duplicate. She wanted to give Lily something familiar to comfort her. A misguided gesture, perhaps. But hardly a police matter.”
“Then why did she run, Mrs. Gable?” Sergeant Miller asked, pulling a small notebook from his breast pocket. “And why was she carrying two personal effects belonging to a child who is currently listed as an endangered missing person?”
My mother’s lips pressed into a thin, bloodless seam. “I want my lawyer present before anyone else speaks to my daughter.”
“Your daughter is twenty-eight years old, ma’am,” Miller replied evenly. “She makes her own legal decisions. And right now, we’re securing a search warrant for her vehicle and the premises.”
