Chapter 6 - The Backyard Version of the Truth
Children tell the truth sideways when the truth is too large to hold all at once.
That became obvious during Emily’s first forensic interview at the Child Advocacy Center.
I watched through the observation window while a trained interviewer sat with her on a rug and let the conversation move at Emily’s pace. They talked about school first. Then soccer. Then the family dog Rebecca once had before the divorce.
Only after thirty minutes did the interviewer ask about Grant.
Emily’s body changed instantly.
Her shoulders rose.
Her voice got careful.
That was the same word I had been using in my head all week. Careful. Not natural. Not easy. Careful.
Grant made rules, she said.
No talking at dinner unless spoken to.
No closing your bedroom door.
No “baby games.”
No “dramatic crying.”
If Rebecca disagreed, Grant accused her of undermining him.
If Emily wanted to call me outside scheduled times, Grant called it “disloyal.”
Then Emily described Friday in more detail.
She had seen Grant holding Rebecca’s wrist in the kitchen.
Rebecca tried to pull away.
Grant demanded “the second copy.”
“What second copy?” the interviewer asked gently.
Emily shrugged. “Maybe papers? Or videos? Mom said he already had enough.”
Then came a line that made Detective Pike, standing beside me, go very still.
Emily said that just before hiding her in the playhouse, Rebecca knelt down and whispered:
“If anything happens, tell Dad I went to the people from the cars. Not the police first. The car people.”
The car people.
Not a lawyer.
Not me.
Not local police.
I turned to Pike. “Could she have meant state investigators?”
“Maybe. Or an auto-theft task force.”
Emily went on. She said Grant was especially angry about one thing.
“Mom told him she wasn’t signing dead people papers anymore.”
The room inside me seemed to tilt.
Dead people papers.
Pike wrote it down immediately.
When the interview ended, she and I sat in the hallway outside the observation room.
“Stolen identities?” I asked.
“Or titles assigned to people who don’t exist anymore. Or insurance claims attached to deceased owners.” She rubbed her temple. “Whatever it is, your ex-wife found a vein.”
“And Grant knew she copied it.”
Pike nodded.
“Which means if she’s alive, he’s looking for her. And if she’s dead, it’s because he thought she’d already given it to someone.”
Neither possibility let me breathe easily.
Before I left that night, Emily took my hand.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Mom said if I got scared, I should remember she always makes backup plans.”
I smiled, but it hurt.
May you like
Rebecca had made backup plans.
Now I just needed one of them to still be working.
