Chapter 13 - MASON’S DISAPPEARANCE
Police treated Mason’s disappearance as urgent.
He was a minor, a key witness, and the person who had preserved evidence against Diane.
Brooke called me after midnight.
Her voice was raw.
“You did this.”
“I have not seen Mason.”
“He contacted you.”
“One time.”
“You turned him against us.”
“Your mother frightened him.”
“My son is missing.”
For a moment, the anger between us disappeared.
We were two mothers facing the same terror.
“Did he say anything before he left?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did he take clothes?”
“A sweatshirt and his old backpack.”
“That means he may have left voluntarily.”
“His phone was by the lake.”
“Did he know it could be tracked?”
Brooke stopped crying.
“Yes.”
Mason was intelligent.
He may have left the phone deliberately.
Rebecca contacted his attorney and the detective assigned to Diane’s case.
Security footage showed Mason leaving the condo building at 7:12.
He walked three blocks, boarded a bus, and disappeared from camera coverage near Union Station.
At 4:30 in the morning, Marisol received a message.
I am safe.
Do not tell my mom where I am.
The message included a photograph of a bus ticket to Milwaukee.
Police traced the number to a prepaid phone.
By sunrise, they located Mason at Robert Bennett’s house outside Madison.
He had found Robert’s address in one of Brooke’s old court documents.
Robert called police immediately after Mason arrived.
When officers brought Mason back to Chicago, he refused to return to Diane’s condo.
He said someone had entered his room after the emergency hearing.
“My grandmother wanted the backup recording,” he told detectives.
“She said if I testified, my mother would lose everything.”
“Did she threaten you?”
“She said people who betray family end up alone.”
“Who removed the memory card from evidence?”
Mason shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Then he looked at Brooke through the interview-room window.
“My mom had access.”
Brooke denied taking it.
Police searched her apartment and found nothing.
Rebecca reminded investigators that three encrypted copies existed.
The missing card could not erase the video.
But the theft proved someone was still obstructing the case.
Mason was temporarily placed with his father, Brooke’s ex-husband.
Before leaving the station, he asked to speak with me.
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I should have stopped Grandma.”
“You were upstairs.”
“I heard Lily crying.”
“You are a child too, Mason.”
“I’m seventeen.”
“That does not make Diane your responsibility.”
He looked relieved and ashamed at the same time.
Then he gave me a small brass key.
“What is this?”
“Grandma keeps a storage unit near Chinatown.”
“How do you know?”
“She made me help move boxes there after you left.”
“What boxes?”
“Computer equipment.”
The missing surveillance server.
Mason closed my fingers around the key.
“There was something else inside the unit.”
“What?”
“A file box with your name on it.”
Police obtained a warrant that afternoon.
The storage unit contained the server, backup recordings, medical files, photographs, and printed copies of my private messages.
The box labeled EMILY held documents dating back five years.
Diane had begun collecting information about me before Jason and I were married.
At the bottom was a sealed envelope addressed to Jason.
May you like
Across the front, Diane had written:
USE THIS WHEN EMILY TRIES TO TAKE LILY.
