Chapter 34 - Wren Tower
Police found Abigail’s tablet in a locked executive drawer at Wren Tower.
They did not find Abigail.
Marcus Wren arrived during the search with three attorneys and the polished indignation of a man who had practiced innocence for decades.
“That device was delivered to me anonymously,” he said.
Ruiz held up the evidence bag. “And you put it in a locked drawer instead of calling police.”
“I intended to turn it over.”
“When?”
“My counsel was advising me.”
Grant stood behind the observation line, not permitted into the search floor. I stayed beside him. He had asked me to come because, in his words, “If they find her, I don’t want her first sight of family to be only men in suits.”
That sentence told me he was already making room for a child he had never met.
Marcus finally looked toward us through the glass partition.
He was handsome in the expensive, preserved way some men became with age. Early fifties. Silver at the temples. Calm eyes.
When he saw Grant, he smiled.
Not warmly.
Grant’s entire posture changed.
I touched his wrist.
He looked down at my hand, then back at Marcus.
Stayed still.
Ruiz returned twenty minutes later.
“We found messages on an internal device.”
“From Marianne?” I asked.
“From someone using initials M.C.W.”
“Marianne Cross-Wren,” Grant said.
“Yes.”
The recovered messages were worse than expected.
SHE BELIEVES THE LETTERS.
DO NOT LET HER CALL MERCER.
WREN IS WATCHING THE SCHOOL.
WE MOVE HER BEFORE FRIDAY.
But another thread went to Marcus.
YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO ME.
Marcus replied:
SHE IS MY DAUGHTER.
The answer:
SHE IS LYDIA’S DAUGHTER. THAT IS WHY YOU NEVER DESERVED HER.
The emotional center of the conflict shifted.
Marianne hated Marcus.
Maybe enough to hide Abigail from him.
Maybe enough to use her.
Ruiz asked Marcus directly where Marianne would go.
He refused at first.
Then Grant walked into the interview room.
Against advice.
Not to threaten.
To speak.
I watched through the glass.
“You want me to believe you care about Abigail?” Grant asked.
Marcus leaned back. “More than you do.”
“I met her in a photograph this week.”
“Exactly.”
“Yet Lydia hid her from you for eleven years.”
Marcus’s smile vanished.
Grant continued. “You can hate me later. Right now, tell police where Marianne would take your daughter.”
Marcus said nothing.
Grant placed a photograph of Noah on the table.
“If Lydia’s warning was right, this ends with both children being used against each other. You know what that feels like because apparently she believed you were capable of it.”
Marcus’s eyes hardened.
Grant did not flinch.
“Prove her wrong once.”
That was the line that broke him.
Marcus looked at Ruiz.
“Marianne has a house in Vermont.”
Ruiz asked for the address.
He gave it.
Then added, “But she won’t be there.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she knows I know about Vermont.”
“Where else?”
Marcus looked toward the photograph of Noah.
“There was a place Lydia called Bluebird Farm.”
Eleanor, listening outside, went rigid.
“I thought it was sold,” she whispered.
It was not.
A shell company still owned it.
Ruiz sent teams.
Hours later, they reached the property.
Again, Abigail was gone.
But this time, they found a fresh video file on a kitchen tablet.
Abigail appeared on screen.
Alive.
Unhurt.
Angry.
She looked straight into the camera.
“My name is Abigail,” she said. “I am not kidnapped.”
Everyone in the room stopped.
Then she continued.
“I left because I learned Grant Mercer knew about me and chose Noah instead.”
Grant’s face collapsed.
“That’s a lie,” he whispered.
On the recording, Abigail lifted a letter.
Lydia’s handwriting.
Or something that looked exactly like it.
May you like
And the girl said the sentence that turned rescue into something far more painful.
“My mother told me he knew.”
