Chapter 3 - The Backpack That Disappeared

My injuries kept me hospitalized for another six days.

The doctors expected my leg to heal, although nerve sensation returned slowly enough to terrify me every morning.

Olivia had a fractured wrist and mild concussion.

Dad took her home after one night.

He was not allowed into my room again.

That was my decision.

It created consequences almost immediately.

Dad called Meredith twelve times.

Then he called my nursing station.

Then he told Olivia I was “letting cops turn me against the family.”

The strangest development came from Detective Keller.

“We inventoried everything recovered from the crash,” she told me.

“Did you find my backpack?”

“No.”

The black canvas backpack had been at my feet when we left Meredith’s house.

Inside it were my transfer documents, apartment receipt, laptop, and the trust-account notice.

“Maybe it burned.”

Keller shook her head.

“Fire damage was concentrated toward the front underside of the vehicle. There was a jacket beside your seat, a water bottle, your purse. No backpack.”

“Dad knew it was there.”

“How?”

“Olivia told him.”

Keller wrote something.

The detective then asked a question that seemed unrelated.

“Who pays the household expenses?”

“Dad.”

I stopped.

“Actually… mostly me.”

Since Mom died, Dad had always had reasons.

The roofing company was slow.

The truck needed repairs.

Olivia needed braces.

Property taxes went up.

My diner paycheck disappeared into the household account so gradually that I had stopped thinking of it as mine.

Then Meredith brought me a stack of mail from Dad’s house.

Three utility bills were in my name.

So was a credit card I had never applied for.

Balance: $8,740.

“That isn’t mine.”

Meredith stared at the statement.

“Grace, I think you need an attorney.”

Not a detective.

Not my father.

My own attorney.

By that afternoon I had signed a fraud affidavit with the credit-card issuer, frozen my credit, and authorized an estate lawyer named Rachel Monroe to obtain the trust records.

That was the first protective decision I had ever made without asking Dad how angry it would make him.

That evening Olivia called from the house.

She sounded like she was hiding somewhere.

“Grace?”

“Are you okay?”

“Dad keeps asking if the police found your backpack.”

My body went cold.

“Why?”

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Olivia began crying.

“Because he found it first.”