Chapter 3 - WHAT SOPHIA SAW
Sophia asked for me.
The meeting happened in a child-friendly interview center.
No interrogation room.
No dramatic confrontation.
A trained professional led the conversation.
I stayed behind the observation glass.
That was harder than I expected.
Sophia held her rabbit.
“Did you ever see something that made Daddy angry?”
The interviewer asked carefully.
Sophia nodded.
“What?”
“A man.”
My heart accelerated.
“What man?”
“The sleeping man.”
Alex and I exchanged a glance.
“Where was he?”
“Daddy's downstairs room.”
Marcus had a basement office.
“Was he asleep?”
Sophia thought.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“He had tape.”
The interviewer did not suggest anything.
“Where?”
“On his mouth.”
My stomach turned.
Sophia continued.
“I went downstairs because Bunny fell.”
She held up the stuffed rabbit.
“He was on a chair.”
“Who else was there?”
“Daddy.”
“Anyone else?”
“Uncle Ben.”
Benjamin Cole.
Marcus's chief operating officer.
Not our uncle.
Sophia called nearly every adult male she knew well “uncle.”
“What were they doing?”
“Talking.”
“About what?”
Sophia shrugged.
Then:
“Daddy said Michael.”
I stopped breathing.
The interviewer gently asked:
“What did he say about Michael?”
Sophia looked toward the observation glass.
She couldn't see me.
“He said Uncle Michael couldn't find the files.”
My hands went cold.
“What happened to the man?”
“Daddy saw me.”
“And then?”
“He got mad.”
Sophia's fingers tightened around Bunny.
“He grabbed my arm.”
There was one of the bruises.
“He said I had a bad dream.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Mommy?”
Sophia nodded.
“What did Mommy say?”
“That Daddy was fixing a problem.”
The interviewer paused.
“Do you know the man's name?”
Sophia shook her head.
Then she said:
“He had a funny tattoo.”
“What kind?”
“A bird.”
My chair scraped backward.
Alex looked at me.
“What?”
I knew one Halcyon whistleblower with a bird tattoo.
Evan Rourke.
The source who disappeared eighteen months earlier.
The man whose disappearance had forced me to abandon the documentary.
We pulled an old photograph.
A swallow tattoo crossed Evan's wrist.
My brother hadn't merely been connected to the case.
My five-year-old niece had apparently seen my missing source restrained inside Marcus's basement.
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And Marcus had spent six months teaching everyone around her that she was a liar.
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