Chapter 7 - The Phone in the Auditorium
Police found the phone beneath a seat in Briarwood’s auditorium.
Naomi was not there.
The device had been powered on for ninety seconds.
Long enough to connect to Wi-Fi.
Long enough to trigger the missing-person alert.
Then it was left behind.
Detective Ortiz treated the auditorium as a scene.
Grace watched from behind the lobby doors.
Taylor stood twenty feet away with her arms wrapped around herself.
Kendra was crying beside her father.
Mrs. Williams looked furious.
“Someone’s playing games,” she said.
Ortiz agreed.
The question was who.
The auditorium was used that morning for a Prescott Foundation board presentation.
Vanessa had been there.
So had Hale.
So had dozens of staff.
Security footage showed everyone entering.
Then at 11:07 a.m., a person in a gray maintenance jacket walked down the side aisle.
Face hidden by a cap.
Placed something beneath Seat G14.
Left.
Mrs. Williams stared at the footage.
“That isn’t one of us.”
“How can you tell?” Grace asked.
“Wrong jacket.”
She pointed.
“District maintenance has reflective stitching.”
This one didn’t.
A disguise.
Ortiz enlarged the person’s hand.
A silver ring.
Kendra inhaled.
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
“My mom wears that ring.”
Everyone looked at her.
Kendra shook her head immediately.
“No. No, that doesn’t mean—”
Taylor whispered:
“Kendra.”
“Shut up.”
“Kendra.”
“I said shut up.”
Her mother, Denise Blake, was called.
She denied being in the auditorium.
Her employee badge showed she entered the district technology office at 8:02 and never left.
Then investigators checked physical door logs.
Her badge remained inside.
That did not mean she did.
At 2:30, police searched her car.
A gray maintenance jacket lay in the trunk.
Denise stopped answering questions.
By evening she had an attorney.
Kendra sat alone outside the police station.
Grace approached cautiously.
Kendra looked up.
“You enjoying this?”
Grace stopped.
“No.”
Kendra wiped tears from her face.
“You should.”
“Why?”
“I laughed at you.”
“Yes.”
“I filmed you.”
“Yes.”
“I told Taylor to dump it again.”
Grace had not known that.
Pain flashed through her.
Kendra saw it.
“There. Now you know.”
Grace sat two chairs away.
“Why tell me?”
“Because everyone keeps acting like Taylor makes me do everything.”
“Does she?”
Kendra laughed bitterly.
“No.”
That mattered.
“She makes it easier,” Kendra continued. “But I liked it too.”
Grace said nothing.
“I liked being beside the person everyone was scared of.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody looked at me.”
Grace frowned.
Kendra stared at the floor.
“My mom controls everything.”
Taylor’s mother controlled through reputation.
Kendra’s mother controlled differently.
Schedules.
Passwords.
Grades.
College plans.
Even Kendra’s friendships.
“Taylor was the only person my mom couldn’t pick for me,” Kendra said.
“So you chose someone cruel because that felt like freedom?”
Kendra laughed weakly.
“That sounds pathetic.”
“It sounds true.”
Silence.
Grace asked:
“Did your mother use your account?”
“Yes.”
“For survey data?”
“I think so.”
“Did you know she was changing anything?”
“No.”
“Did you know Taylor was searching Naomi’s locker?”
“Yes.”
“Did you help?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t use your mother to erase your part.”
Kendra nodded.
“I know.”
Grace stood.
“Good.”
As she walked away, Kendra said:
“Grace.”
She turned.
“My mom hated Naomi.”
“Why?”
“She said Naomi was trying to destroy the grant project.”
“Did she ever meet her?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“The night Naomi came back to Briarwood.”
Grace went still.
“When?”
“After she ran away from her mom.”
“Why didn’t you tell police?”
“I didn’t know Naomi was missing then.”
“What happened?”
Kendra looked terrified.
“I was waiting for Mom in the district office parking lot.”
“And?”
“I saw Naomi get into her car.”
Grace’s pulse pounded.
“Voluntarily?”
“I think so.”
“Then?”
“They drove away.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“That was the night Naomi’s phone last connected.”
Kendra nodded.
Grace ran back inside.
Detective Ortiz listened.
Then called for Denise Blake to return for questioning.
Her attorney refused.
Police began tracing Denise’s movements from that night.
Her car passed a highway camera at 11:38 p.m.
Heading north.
At 12:16, another camera captured it entering Fairmont County.
At 1:03, it returned south.
No clear image of the passenger seat.
Detective Ortiz pulled property records.
Denise owned nothing in Fairmont.
Vanessa Prescott did.
A small lakeside cottage held by her consulting company.
Taylor stared at the address.
“I’ve been there.”
Ortiz turned.
“When?”
“Summers.”
“Who has keys?”
“My mom.”
“Anyone else?”
“Hale.”
Grace frowned.
“Why does the assistant principal have a key to your mother’s cottage?”
Taylor looked equally disturbed.
“I don’t know.”
Then Mrs. Williams asked the question nobody else had.
“Does Denise?”
Taylor slowly nodded.
“She used to go there with my mom.”
Silence.
The mothers knew one another far better than their daughters had understood.
Police drove north.
At 4:52 a.m., Detective Ortiz called Andrea Bell.
The cottage was empty.
But someone had stayed there recently.
Food.
Blankets.
An inhaler box prescribed to Naomi Bell.
And on the kitchen table:
A handwritten note.
I LEFT BECAUSE DENISE SAID SHE WOULD HELP. SHE LIED.
Beneath it:
VANESSA KNOWS WHERE I WENT NEXT.
Taylor read the photograph of the note.
Then looked at Grace.
May you like
“My mother knows where Naomi is.”
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