Chapter 16 - RACHEL’S APARTMENT
Police reached Rachel’s apartment in four minutes.
The front door was open.
A broken lamp lay across the hallway.
Rachel’s phone was on the kitchen floor.
She was missing.
Security footage showed Diane leaving through the underground garage with Rachel forced beneath a maintenance coat.
Diane had taken my sister to make me come to her.
Twenty minutes later, a video arrived on my phone.
Rachel sat tied to a chair inside an unfamiliar room.
Her lip was bruised.
Diane stood behind her.
“Bring Lily to the old Bennett house,” she said.
“One hour.”
“No police.”
“If you fail, your sister will pay for what you did to my family.”
Detective Bell immediately began analyzing the video.
The room was not the Lake Forest estate.
A train horn sounded in the background.
Sunlight entered from the west.
Eleanor gripped my shoulders.
“You are not going.”
“She has Rachel.”
“The police will find her.”
“She wants Lily.”
“And you cannot give her exactly what she wants.”
I looked at the paused image.
A brass number had been attached to the wall behind Rachel.
Jason recognized it.
“The foundation owns apartments near the old freight yards.”
Bell found the address.
Building 204 was an abandoned residential facility once funded by Diane’s charity.
Police prepared a tactical entry.
I insisted on going to the command vehicle.
Eleanor objected.
Bell allowed it because Diane might demand proof that I had arrived.
Lily remained with Ms. Patel and two officers at another location.
The building stood beneath elevated train tracks on the South Side.
Broken windows reflected the winter sun.
Diane called again.
“Where is Lily?”
“Safe.”
“You had one instruction.”
“Let me see Rachel.”
The video shifted.
Rachel was still alive.
“Bring my granddaughter inside.”
“No.”
Diane’s calm vanished.
“You have no right to keep her from me.”
“You struck her.”
“One slap.”
“She is two.”
“She embarrassed me in front of my family.”
“She spilled soup.”
“She was undisciplined.”
“You hurt a baby because soup landed on a rug.”
“You struck my son three times.”
“Yes.”
The admission silenced her.
“I struck an adult who watched his daughter being assaulted.”
“You think that makes you righteous?”
“No.”
“It makes me someone who finally stopped being afraid of you.”
Bell signaled that officers were in position.
I needed to keep Diane talking.
“You planned to kill me.”
“I planned to save Lily.”
“By taking her mother away?”
“Children forget.”
The words burned through me.
“No.”
“Children remember who made them feel safe.”
Before Diane could answer, an explosion of sound came through the phone.
A door broke open.
Officers shouted.
Rachel screamed.
Then the connection ended.
For twelve seconds, no one spoke inside the command vehicle.
Bell’s radio crackled.
“Hostage recovered.”
I nearly collapsed.
Then another message followed.
“Suspect moving to the roof.”
On the surveillance monitor, Diane emerged above the building.
She stood near the edge.
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In one hand, she held a pistol.
In the other, she held Lily’s missing yellow sock.
