June stood up and walked to stand beside Holt so she could read it over his shoulder.
By the time you get this, I will be gone from this world.
You were the one person I never wanted to disappoint or fail, the way I failed your mother.
Thank you for always being the one to come and visit me when the rest of the family had turned their backs on me.
You once asked me why I never stopped your mother from doing what she did, and it was because it was my fault. I was never home. I was always trying to keep your mother and your grandmother in the comfort and style they were accustomed to, and so I did what I had to do.
By the time I realized what your mother was up to, it was already too late. That’s when I knew it was time to take control, and that’s when I made the deal with the Morrison family.
June frowned.
The sentence ended there, and the next page didn’t follow from it at all. There was a gap, a clear and deliberate gap, as though an entire page had been removed. The text that followed picked up mid-thought in a way that made no sense as a continuation of what had come before.
...carrying on a family tradition. Your great-grandfather was also a cat burglar, but he never got caught. He was known as the Night Raider.
June looked up at Holt as he stiffened, and his head shot up to look at Sienna.
“The Night Raider,” Holt said quietly. He set the pages carefully on the desk. “Sienna, why have you never brought this letter in before now?”
Sienna looked genuinely caught off guard by the question. “I only found it… The letter today,” she replied. “I went through my mother’s things this morning, looking for anything that might tell me where she’d gone. I found it in her room. She must have intercepted it when it arrived and then hid it before I could get it.” She swallowed nervously. “Today was the first day I saw it and that…” She closed her eyes for a brief moment as if battling with a decision. “That’s when I decided to come to you and June.”
June looked at Holt.
“Wait!” Holt said, his brow furrowing as he held up a hand. “Gone?” He looked at her questioningly. “What exactly do you mean by your mother’s gone?”
“My mother isn’t at the house,” Sienna said. “She wasn’t there again when I woke up this morning. Alfred is gone as well. I have no idea where either of them are.”
“When did you last see your mother or Alfred?” June asked.
“Just as the storm hit,” Sienna told them. “I saw her car pulling out of the driveway. I assumed she was going somewhere before the conditions got too bad to drive.” Sienna’s hands stilled on the sweater hem for the first time since she’d sat down. “I haven’t seen or heard from her since that moment.” She glanced at the flash drive. “That’s how I got the flash drive. I was wondering what she’d been doing in the garage for hours before she left. So I went to check the security footage and found that.”
Holt leaned forward in his chair. “Sienna, is there anything else you need to tell us? You have no idea where?” Holt asked.
“No,” Sienna said with a shake of her head. “But right before I came here, I asked our housekeeper if she had any idea. She said no but she was worried about my mother.” Her eyes darted between Holt and June, who was still standing beside him. “She had overheard my mother on the phone just before the storm hit.” She shifted nervously in her seat. “She was speaking to Alvin. So I presume it was Alvin Frost. My mother and the man were always in the same place at the same time when he lived next door to us.” She gave a snort. “Now I know why.”
“Sienna, what did your housekeeper overhear?” Holt pushed her.
“My mother told him that the two of you were getting too close,” Sienna said. “That you were going to figure out what she’d done.” Her voice was quiet and completely steady. “My housekeeper was worried about my mother. She’s always protected my mother.” Her jaw tensed. “Anyway, my mother told Alvin she had to disappear. That she had to go now, before it was too late.”
The office was completely silent.
June’s mind flickered to their case boards as she slowly walked back to her chair and sat down. Her mind clicked over. In her mind’s eye, she saw Victoria Morrison’s name in the suspects column exactly where it had been sitting since Holt had written it there. June had been right. Victoria had been involved in all of this. Yet as she picked up her pen to jot down some more notes that something that didn’t quite fit or sit right still nagged at the back of her mind.
11
HOLT
Holt looked at Sienna across his desk for a moment after she’d finished speaking.
She’d said everything she’d come to say. He could see it in the way she sat. The slight deflation of someone who had been carrying something heavy for a long time and had finally set it down. But Holt could also see that Sienna looked unsure whether putting it down had been the right or the most dangerous decision she’d ever made.
“Thank you for bringing this in, Sienna,” Holt said. He kept his voice measured and warm. “I know how hard that must have been.”
Sienna looked at her hands. The sweater sleeves were still pulled down over her fingers. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she admitted quietly.
“You did the right thing,” June told her.
