Chapter 33 - a pattern of shadows
We walked to the campus safety office together. The officer on duty, a tired-looking man named Henderson with a receding hairline and a silver badge pinned to a navy polo, took down the report with the casual indifference of someone used to dealing with stolen bicycles and drunken pranks.
"Look, Mr. Vance," Henderson said, spinning his pen on the desk. "Brewster Hall is right next to the town border. Delivery drivers, townies, other students—people cut through that courtyard all day and night. Could be an old friend from high school messing with her."
"It isn’t a prank," I said, leaning across the counter until my voice was low enough that Lily wouldn't hear the tremor in it. "The man who abducted my children seven years ago used those exact words. He is currently serving twelve years."
Henderson stopped spinning his pen. His eyes shifted from me to Lily, then to the plastic bag containing the napkin.
"You have a restraining order on file?"
"Against Julian Vance," I said. "And any contact initiated through third parties."
"I’ll have a patrol car run extra sweeps around Brewster during the night shifts," Henderson offered, his tone shifting from dismissive to professionally cautious. "And we can put her in for an emergency room reassignment to a higher floor. Brewster has empty singles on the fourth floor."
"We’ll take it," I said without consulting Lily.
"Dad," she protested softly as we walked out into the corridor. "I just unpacked. My roommate—"
"Lily, fourth floor means no ground-level windows. No one reaches a fourth-floor sill without a ladder."
She looked at me, her brown eyes carrying that old, weary expression that belonged to a woman thirty years older. "We’re doing this again, aren't we? Looking at locks. Measuring heights. Wondering who has a key."
"I'm keeping you safe."
"That’s what Mom thought she was doing when she put the chain on the cellar door," Lily said, her voice quiet as glass. "She thought she was hiding us from the monsters outside."
The words struck like a physical blow. Before I could answer, my phone vibrated in my pocket. A private number.
I answered. "Hello?"
"Is this Lily Vance's father?" a crisp female voice asked.
May you like
"Yes. Who is this?"
"This is the Cumberland Correctional Facility records division. We are calling to inform registered victims that inmate Julian Vance has been granted an evidentiary hearing for early resentencing."
