"Come on, kid," I gasped, snatching the heavy pink raincoat off the table and grabbing her small hand. "We have to go. Now."
I bypassed the stairs leading to the main bay and pulled her toward the heavy metal fire door at the back of the loft. We burst out onto the exterior metal staircase. The cold rain instantly soaked us again as we hurried down the rusted steps, slipping into the dark, weed-choked alley behind the garage.
My beat-up, secondary Chevy truck was parked beneath a rusted corrugated awning, hidden from the street.
I threw Lily into the passenger side, tossed the heavy pink coat onto the floorboards, and jumped into the driver’s seat. The engine coughed twice before roaring to life. I threw it in reverse, smashed through the fragile wooden gate of the back fence, and slammed the accelerator to the floor.
We tore onto the dark, rain-slicked county highway, leaving my home, my business, and my past rapidly behind us.
We drove in complete silence for three hours. I didn't stop until we crossed two county lines and pulled into a cheap, flickering neon motel off a desolate stretch of the interstate. The kind of place that only asked for cash and never looked at your face.
I carried Lily into the dingy room. The walls smelled like mildew and stale smoke. I locked the deadbolt, chained the door, and pulled the heavy, moth-eaten curtains shut.
Lily sat on the edge of the sagging mattress, her legs dangling, watching me with wide, hollow eyes.
"Are the bad men gone, Grandpa?" she whispered.
"They're gone," I lied smoothly, dropping to one knee in front of her. "Nobody is going to hurt you. I promise you that on my life."
I walked over to the small rickety table where I had dropped her pink raincoat. I pulled my pocket knife from my jeans. With a quick, sharp motion, I sliced through the yellow nylon lining at the heavy spot.
I reached my hand inside the lining and pulled out the source of the weight.
It wasn't a brick. It wasn't money.
It was a small, heavy, solid-brass safety deposit box key. Taped to the side of the key was a tiny, waterproof plastic capsule.
I frowned, peeling the tape away. Inside the capsule was a tightly rolled piece of paper. I unrolled it carefully. There were no words. Just a sequence of four numbers: 0-4-1-8.
"What is that?" Lily asked, leaning forward on the bed.
"I don't know, kid," I muttered, staring at the brass key. It didn't have a bank logo. It looked older, utilitarian. The kind of key used for private, unsupervised storage.
My mind raced, trying to piece together the nightmare. Emily had run away with Cole. Cole was involved with dangerous men—men with tactical training and matching tattoos. Emily must have stolen something from them. Money, probably. She stitched the key to the money in Lily’s coat, told Lily to run, and the men had caught Emily before she could escape.
They weren't hunting Lily to get custody. They were hunting Lily for the money.
"Lily," I said gently, walking back to the bed. "Do you remember what the bad man yelled at your mom about? Did she take something from him? Was it money?"
Lily shook her head emphatically. "No. The bad man yelled about the book. Mommy’s special notebook."
"A notebook?"
"Yes. She wrote everything in it. Every time the bad men brought the quiet ladies in the big trucks, Mommy wrote it down. The loud man said if he didn't get the book back, his boss would kill him."
My blood turned to ice in my veins.
Brought the quiet ladies in the big trucks.
Human trafficking.
Cole wasn't just dealing drugs or boosting cars. He was trafficking people. And Emily had found out. She hadn't stolen money. She had been keeping a ledger. She had collected evidence.
"Lily... where did Mommy put the notebook?"
"She put it in the big envelope," Lily said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "And she put it in the blue box on the street. She said it was going to the old metal box. The one she said you used to keep your tools in."
My mind stalled. The blue box on the street. A mailbox. She mailed it.
The old metal box you used to keep your tools in.