Chapter 6 - THE EMPTY DRIVEWAY
I spent the night listening for Dad's car.
Every passing engine made me sit up.
At sunrise, Daniel called the police to request a welfare check after we failed to reach him and explained the unusual text.
We could not simply declare him missing because he had stopped responding, but we could report our concerns.
An officer later confirmed Dad was not at the house when someone checked.
His car was gone.
Mom answered the door and said he had gone fishing.
Dad hated fishing.
He once described it as standing beside a lake and apologizing to worms.
I told the officer that detail; he thanked me and recorded it.
Mr. Collins advised us to keep the threads separate: the property documents, the unauthorized entry, the child-welfare report, and now Dad's whereabouts.
It was maddening to hear each crisis separated when the same people appeared in every one.
But I understood the importance of proof.
Daniel's sister, Rebecca, arrived that afternoon with groceries and a stubborn promise to handle the cooking.
She took Olivia while I showered.
For fifteen minutes, warm water was the only sound in my world.
When I came downstairs, Rebecca had written a list on the refrigerator: feed baby, feed parents, sleep, call lawyer, repeat.
I laughed for the first time in days.
Then my phone rang.
The caller was a clerk at my father's office.
She had noticed unusual attempts to access archived financial files using Dad's credentials.
She was not permitted to share protected details, but Dad had listed me as an emergency contact, and she was concerned.
"He told us he would be out for a week," she said.
"That isn't like him."
I explained that we were trying to reach him.
She promised to provide relevant information to authorities if requested.
By evening, Mrs. Alvarez had found more footage.
Dad had visited our street the night he called.
He parked two houses down, sat in his car for sixteen minutes, and drove away after the gray-jacketed man approached his window.
The man leaned in, spoke briefly, then stepped aside.
Dad's car left the neighborhood.
The image was grainy, but I knew the set of his shoulders.
He looked defeated.
Daniel watched beside me.
"Maybe they scared him," he said.
"Or maybe he came here to tell us something and changed his mind."
At nine, an unfamiliar woman called my phone and introduced herself as an investigator working with the financial institution that had handled my grandfather's estate.
She would not discuss account details without verification, but she asked whether I still possessed the original estate correspondence.
I said Mr. Collins did.
She asked me to have him contact her through the institution's published number.
Then she added, "Please don't give anyone copies of your identification until we confirm the request."
I immediately forwarded the information to Collins.
Minutes later Dad's phone sent a second message.
It contained only an address and three words.
"Look under workshop."
May you like
The address belonged to my grandfather's old property, sold years earlier.
