Chapter 5 - MY SISTER ON THE SCREEN
I watched the tape three times.
The first time I cried so hard I missed half of it.
The second time I tried to listen.
The third time I wrote down every word.
Iris was eighteen in the recording.
Maybe nineteen.
Older than I had ever known her.
Young enough that the child I remembered still moved beneath her face when she frowned.
She sat in a room with pale walls.
No windows visible.
A woman behind the camera asked questions.
“State your name.”
“Iris Callaway.”
“Other names used?”
Iris swallowed.
“Nora Lane. Emma Vale. Iris Lane.”
“Do you know your date of birth?”
She gave it correctly.
My hands shook.
“Parents?”
“Lila Callaway.”
“Father?”
“Unknown.”
“Siblings?”
That was when her face broke.
“One sister.”
“Name?”
“Rue.”
A pause.
“Last name?”
“Callaway.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
“Do you believe she is alive?”
Iris looked directly into the camera.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because they told me she was dead.”
The woman behind the camera went quiet.
Iris continued.
“They lie when they want you to stop asking.”
That sentence sounded like my mother.
Like me.
Harris stopped the tape.
“Rue.”
“Keep going.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I waited seventeen years.”
She pressed play.
The interviewer asked how Iris escaped.
“I didn’t.”
Iris looked down.
“A woman named Celeste moved me to Michigan House when I was ten. She said my mother had signed me over.”
My stomach turned.
Celeste Kells.
“She told me Rue died in a car accident.”
I closed my eyes.
Iris continued.
“When I was sixteen, another girl found newspaper archives online. I searched my name.”
Her mouth trembled.
“I saw the missing poster.”
I remembered that poster.
My twelve-year-old face beside hers.
MISSING: IRIS CALLAWAY.
“She realized who she was,” Harris whispered.
I nodded.
Iris said she ran from Michigan House at seventeen.
A youth outreach program helped her.
Someone contacted Calvin Pike.
That explained the tape.
Pike had found her.
He had found Iris.
Why had he never called me?
The interviewer asked the question for me.
“Why haven’t you contacted Rue?”
Iris looked away.
“Pike says people are still watching her.”
My anger hit so fast I stood.
“They kept us apart.”
Harris paused the tape.
“He may have believed he was protecting you.”
“There is that sentence again.”
“Rue.”
“Seventeen years.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
She let me have the anger.
That helped.
We resumed.
Iris said she wanted to contact me anyway.
Pike told her to wait until he could identify who had corrupted the original case.
Then the tape ended.
No resolution.
No current address.
Just my sister alive eleven years after she disappeared.
The recording was dated nine years ago.
The same year Silas Voss died.
I called Harlan.
He answered from Belle’s hospital room.
“Did you find Adrian?”
“No.”
“I found Iris.”
Silence.
Then his voice softened.
“Alive?”
“On a tape. Nine years ago.”
“Rue.”
“I don’t know where she is now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“For what?”
“Don’t make me feel better yet.”
A pause.
“Okay.”
That was exactly right.
I leaned against the old dispatch desk.
“Is Belle okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did she say more about Adrian?”
“She knew him. She thought he was taking her to me.”
My chest tightened.
“Harlan.”
“I know.”
“How did she get away?”
“Adrian put her in a car near the art center. She said a woman opened the rear door at a stoplight and told her to run.”
I froze.
“What woman?”
“She thinks the woman who gave her the butterfly.”
My pulse changed.
“So the woman helped her.”
“Yes.”
“Did Belle describe her again?”
“Brown hair. Shoulder length. She says the woman had a scar above one eyebrow.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Iris.
The girl on the tape had a scar above one eyebrow.
“Harlan.”
“I know.”
“She was there.”
“Possibly.”
“No. She was there.”
My sister had been close enough to touch Belle.
She had put her old clip in Belle’s pocket.
She had opened the car door.
She had helped her run.
And then she vanished.
Why?
Harris began calling every database she could access.
I sent her screenshots from the tape.
Facial recognition required warrants and time.
Harlan’s private people could move faster.
I hated needing them.
I hated more that time mattered.
“Use your people,” I told him.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“I will limit it to open-source identification.”
“Yes.”
“No intrusion.”
“Good.”
I heard him exhale.
“You sound disappointed.”
“I am trying not to sound pleased that you trust me with anything.”
“That is not what this is.”
“I know.”
The answer was too gentle.
I changed the subject.
“What about Adrian?”
“His company phone is off. Car abandoned near Corktown.”
“Family?”
“Divorced. No children.”
“Celeste?”
“No current address.”
“Gideon?”
“With police.”
“Do you trust him?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Harlan almost laughed.
Then Belle’s voice came faintly through the phone.
“Is Rue coming?”
I closed my eyes.
Harlan answered her, not me.
“She said later.”
“Later is now.”
Six-year-old logic.
I said, “Put me on speaker.”
“Hi, Belle.”
“Hi.”
“You feeling okay?”
“Yes. Dad keeps asking.”
“Your dad is discovering anxiety.”
“I know.”
Harlan said, “I was familiar with anxiety before today.”
Belle ignored him.
“Are you coming?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Then she whispered loudly.
“Dad is sad.”
Harlan closed his eyes somewhere on the other end. I could feel it.
“Why?”
“Because Adrian is bad.”
“I’m not sad,” Harlan said.
Belle continued whispering.
“He does that.”
I smiled despite myself.
“I’ll come soon.”
When I reached the hospital, security was heavier.
Police.
Voss men.
Hospital staff angry about both.
Harlan had somehow convinced everyone to keep the hallway quiet.
Belle was sitting up eating applesauce.
Iris’s butterfly clip was no longer evidence in the room, but Belle had drawn one on paper.
Blue wings.
Silver star.
I stopped.
“Pretty?” she asked.
“Very.”
“I made one for you.”
My throat tightened.
“Thank you.”
Harlan stood near the window.
He had changed his shirt.
Still no tie.
He looked older than he had hours earlier.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
I looked at Belle.
She waved us away.
“I’m watching Bluey.”
Important business.
We stepped into a family lounge.
Harlan closed the door but remained near it.
Space.
Choice.
“I found someone.”
My pulse jumped.
“Iris?”
“Maybe.”
“What does maybe mean?”
“A woman using the name Nora Lane worked at a youth shelter in Traverse City until six months ago.”
I remembered the tape.
Nora Lane.
One of Iris’s names.
“Photo?”
He handed me his phone.
The staff page was cached.
Nora Lane.
Twenty-nine.
Program coordinator.
Brown hair.
Scar above left eyebrow.
My sister.
Older.
Alive.
I sat down.
“She’s alive.”
“Yes.”
“Six months ago.”
“Yes.”
“Where did she go?”
“No forwarding address.”
“Of course.”
Harlan sat across from me.
“She may have left because Adrian found her.”
“Or because she found him.”
“That too.”
I looked at the photograph.
Iris smiled at the camera.
Not the missing seven-year-old.
Not the frightened teenager on Pike’s tape.
A woman.
A whole person who had lived a life without me.
Joy and grief existed together so violently I could barely breathe.
Harlan said nothing.
He let the silence belong to me.
Finally I asked, “Why did Adrian take Belle?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You were his boss.”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“That is the part I cannot answer.”
“Money?”
“He had money.”
“Power?”
“He had that.”
“Revenge?”
“Against my father maybe. Against me, unclear.”
“What did Owen Kells lose when Silas found Silver Star?”
“Everything.”
I looked at him.
“Maybe Adrian thinks your family destroyed his.”
“Possible.”
“Or he wants the ledger.”
“Possible.”
“Or Belle was leverage.”
Harlan’s face hardened.
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“My signature. access. territory.”
“You have to stop talking like a 1930s gangster.”
He almost smiled.
“I own logistics companies.”
“And men are terrified of you.”
“They are terrified of my legal department.”
I stared.
He gave up.
“Some are terrified for other reasons.”
“Thank you.”
His face became serious.
“I need to tell you something.”
That sentence never improves a night.
“What?”
“Adrian had access to Belle’s medical file.”
My stomach tightened.
“Her heart condition.”
“Yes.”
“So he knew the cold could kill her.”
“Yes.”
The room went silent.
This was not a kidnapping that went wrong.
He had abandoned a medically fragile six-year-old in a freezing garage.
He knew.
Harlan’s hands remained still on his knees.
Too still.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
“I asked.”
He looked at me.
“I’m thinking I trusted him near my daughter.”
The self-hatred in his voice surprised me.
“That is his crime, not yours.”
“I hired him.”
“He deceived you.”
“I am supposed to know.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
“You cannot control every person.”
“I built my life on trying.”
There it was.
The truth.
I leaned back.
“My mother did too.”
He looked at me.
“She hid things because she thought information would kill us.”
“Did it protect you?”
“For a while.”
“And after?”
“It left me alone with a story that wasn’t true.”
Harlan absorbed that.
I continued.
“If Belle grows up, do not make her responsible for your fear.”
His eyes hardened slightly.
“You think I do?”
“I think you could.”
That was dangerous honesty.
He did not punish it.
He nodded.
“Fair.”
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
A text.
One photograph.
Belle’s drawing on the hospital tray.
Taken minutes ago.
My skin went cold.
Someone had been close enough to photograph inside the room.
Below it:
RUE, IF YOU WANT IRIS ALIVE, COME ALONE.
No location.
A second message arrived.
OLD MERIDIAN THEATER. MIDNIGHT.
Harlan read over my shoulder.
“No.”
I looked at him.
He stopped.
Closed his eyes.
Then tried again.
“I do not think you should go alone.”
“Better.”
“You are not going alone.”
“That was worse.”
“Rue.”
“My sister.”
“My daughter is being watched inside a secured hospital.”
“That is exactly why you stay here.”
His face tightened.
“You are asking me to let you walk into a trap.”
“I’m asking nothing.”
“I can’t.”
The words came before control.
Not won’t.
Can’t.
I looked at him.
He looked away.
“My wife died when Belle was two.”
I went still.
He had never mentioned Belle’s mother.
“Car accident?”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“She was killed because someone wanted to hurt me.”
That changed the room.
“I’m sorry.”
“Afterward I built walls around Belle.”
“I noticed.”
“I trusted very few people.”
“Adrian.”
“Yes.”
“And he took her anyway.”
“Yes.”
The pain in that answer made me understand him.
Not agree.
Understand.
“I cannot watch another person walk into danger because of my family.”
“This started with mine too.”
“I know.”
“Iris may be there.”
“I know.”
“So help me go without going alone.”
He looked at me.
“What would you accept?”
The question again.
I thought.
“Police nearby.”
“Yes.”
“You and Harris in separate cars.”
“Yes.”
“No one inside unless I signal.”
His jaw tightened.
“That is difficult.”
“Not impossible.”
“No weapons visible.”
“Rue.”
“Visible.”
He exhaled.
“Fine.”
“If Iris is there, I speak first.”
“Yes.”
“If Adrian is there?”
Harlan’s face went cold.
“I speak first.”
“That seems fair.”
He stood.
Then his phone rang.
Malik.
Harlan answered.
“What?”
His face changed.
“Lock the elevators.”
Pause.
“No. Do not chase.”
He ended the call.
“What?”
Harlan looked toward Belle’s room.
“Someone just tried to access her floor using Adrian’s old credential.”
My stomach dropped.
“Who?”
“Security camera caught her face.”
He showed me.
A woman in a gray coat.
Brown hair to her shoulders.
Scar above the left eyebrow.
I stopped breathing.
Iris.
May you like
My sister was inside the hospital.
And she was running toward Belle’s room.
