Chapter 12 - THE PASSPORT PLAN
The passport application was fraudulent.
Photograph:
Caleb.
Birth record:
fabricated.
Supporting affidavit:
signed by Victor.
Why now?
Catherine had become harder to control.
She asked more questions.
Caleb asked for Samuel more often.
Daria planned to move him to a property in Portugal owned by a family friend.
Not forever, she claimed.
“Until things calmed down.”
Nothing had been calm for two years.
Catherine discovered the passport envelope.
That triggered her final escape.
She waited until Victor left Hawthorne Farm.
Packed:
Caleb’s medication,
two changes of clothes,
her notebook,
photographs,
the recorder.
They walked nearly four miles to a bus stop because Daria controlled the only car.
Catherine had little cash.
Her bank card had stopped working.
Why?
Daria had been paying her through a controlled payroll account that was closed the morning after Catherine disappeared.
By the time she reached the mansion six days later, she looked homeless.
That was why Daria called her a beggar.
Not because Catherine had always lived on the street.
Because Daria’s own retaliation had stripped away the appearance of legitimacy.
Then another financial record surfaced.
Victor had requested $15,000 from Daria three days before Catherine fled.
Memo:
RELOCATION.
He knew about Portugal.
He was helping.
Victor’s defense that he merely “went along with Mom” weakened.
Then Catherine wrote Samuel a sentence:
I AM SORRY I DID NOT BRING HIM SOONER.
Samuel looked at her.
He signed clumsily:
NOT YOUR FAULT.
Catherine shook her head.
Then wrote:
I WAS AFRAID.
Samuel signed:
YOU CAME.
That was enough.
Then Catherine added:
THERE IS ONE THING CALEB REMEMBERS THAT I NEVER WROTE DOWN.
Samuel waited.
May you like
She wrote:
HE REMEMBERS WHO PUT THE RED JACKET BY THE WATER.
