“But Mom—”
“Now, please.”
The boy left through the rear door.
Karen locked the front entrance and turned the sign to CLOSED.
“I wondered when someone would come,” she said.
Amelia’s pulse quickened. “About Danton?”
Karen folded her arms, not defensively, but as if holding herself upright. “Lyle wasn’t at the bar until midnight. He came in wet from the rain. Mud on his shoes. He told me if anyone asked, he’d been there since eight.”
“And you confirmed it.”
“I was twenty-six. Stupid. Scared.” Karen looked away. “He said it was nothing. Said he’d gotten into trouble with some money and needed time. Then the news came on the next morning about Martin Keller.”
“Why didn’t you go to police?”
“I did.”
Amelia froze. “What?”
“I called the station from a pay phone two days later. I didn’t give my name. I said Lyle’s alibi was false.”
“What happened?”
“A man called me back at the bar that night.” Karen swallowed. “Not Lyle. Someone else. He said good people could get hurt by bad timing. He said I should remember that I had a little sister who walked home from school.”
Amelia’s voice softened. “Do you know who it was?”
Karen shook her head, tears gathering in her eyes. “No. But I remember his voice.”
Amelia reached into her bag and took out the photograph from the cabin.
Karen looked at Danton first.
Then Avery.
Then her eyes moved to Reed.
Her breath caught.
“That’s him,” she whispered.
Amelia became very still. “The man who called you?”
Karen nodded.
“That’s the voice.”
The flower shop seemed suddenly too quiet.
Wind chimes tapped softly against the glass door.
Karen pressed her fingers to her mouth. “Who is he?”
Amelia looked down at the photograph.
“Someone who may have helped keep an innocent man in prison.”
Karen closed her eyes.
“I’ll testify,” she said before Amelia could ask. “I should have done it years ago.”
Amelia let out the breath she had been holding.
“You were scared.”
Karen wiped her cheek. “So was that little girl. She still told.”
That sentence followed Amelia all the way back to town.
By the time she reached the prison, dusk had settled low and purple across the horizon. She had called ahead to request an urgent meeting with Mitchell, but when she entered his office, she found him standing by the window with his coat on.
“We have Reed,” she said.
Mitchell turned.
Amelia told him about Karen Vale. The false alibi. The anonymous call. The voice she identified as Reed’s.
Mitchell listened without interruption.
When she finished, he looked older than he had the day before.
“That’s witness intimidation,” he said quietly.
“At minimum.”
“And if he helped transfer evidence…”
“Then he may have been part of the frame.”
Mitchell picked up the photograph from his desk. “I suspended his access credentials an hour ago.”
Amelia’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“He didn’t report for afternoon rounds. His office is cleared out.”
A chill moved through her.
“What do you mean cleared out?”
“Personal items gone. Desk files removed. Computer wiped badly, not professionally. Like someone in a hurry.”
“Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
Amelia stepped closer to the desk. “Did he run?”
Mitchell handed her a sheet of paper.
It was a copy of a gate log.
Thomas Reed had left the prison at 1:12 p.m.
In the passenger seat of his vehicle, according to the officer who signed the exit form, was a cardboard records box.
Amelia stared at the page.
“What was in the box?”
Mitchell’s face was grim. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
The answer came from Chloe.
Not directly.
Not immediately.
But from something she had carried all along without understanding its importance.
That evening, Denise brought Chloe to Amelia’s office. The plan was simple: Amelia wanted to prepare Chloe gently for the idea that grown-ups might ask her questions in court one day. Not that day. Not soon. But someday.
