Page 109 of Keep This Promise
He sighs. “I don’t know.” For another minute or two, we sift through papers, and then Holden hands me something else. “Look, here he shows his name again, but in the UK.”
“Theo was his patient,” I remind him. “Having a meeting in London isn’t so strange.”
“We don’t know for certain he was truly treating him. It wouldn’t look strange if Theo was seeing a doctor for his heart that worked with his company, would it?”
I shake my head. “No, he was absolutely his doctor. I went to his appointments with him.”
“Let’s go on the assumption then that Dr. Frasher wasn’t actually Theo’s doctor. You went to his appointments to make it all look real. All the falsified records are Dr. Frasher’s. He had the letter from Theo. What if he and Theo were giving that illusion in order to protect their families?” Holden questions.
All of this is so crazy to me. If Theo or Dr. Frasher would just tell us the truth, we could’ve gone to the police or gotten help. None of this would’ve happened. Now we’re in a vault, trying to put the pieces together with bombs strapped to our chests.
“We need to find the money.”
“I agree. So, let’s keep digging.”
I start piling through and find a transfer from our personal account. “Holden, look at this.”
“That’s a nice size transfer.”
“It’s made every three days for two weeks. I don’t know of any account in Belize.” I groan. “He went through all of this trouble and didn’t think to leave a nice note with the directions of whatever the bloody failsafe was! Fuck! I need our daughter. I came here for what? To lose her because of sodding money?”
He gets to his feet and holds both of my arms. “You came for a life. For a family, and while I don’t know that Theo ever thought we’d be together, you came for me. I love you, Sophie. I love you and Eden. I will not give up. You and I are strong together, goddamn it. We will find Eden because we won’t quit. I am scared and angry, and all I want is that little girl in our arms, so don’t you dare give up on us.”
Taking his face in my hands, I lean in and kiss him. “I love you too. I hate that this is how we just said it, but . . .”
“But it’s the truth.”
“And how do we live through this?” I ask. “I don’t know how this ends, and I just want her back.”
“I do too, baby. I do too. Let’s keep looking and see if we find anything else we can use.”
Once again, I spend time combing through Theo’s random thoughts and nothingness. Each page we read leaves us closer to nothing. It’s incredibly frustrating. As I’m about to give up, I find a note that causes me to pause.
In his thick, scribbling handwriting, it says: “Paramedics take runaways.”
“Holden?”
“Yeah?”
“The case that you’re involved in, the one you’re testifying in . . . what did he do?”
Holden puts the paper down. “We can talk about that later.”
“No, please answer me,” I push.
He tilts his head to both sides and then begins. “His name is Ryan Wilkinson. He’s from Rose Canyon, and he was involved with trafficking runaways and the death of three girls that we know of, but we haven’t been able to prove it. He was arrested after having abducted Blakely, and he has been sitting in jail since, waiting for his trial.”
“And how was he trafficking girls?”
Blakely told me bits and pieces of this story, but I need to know the whole of it.
“He was a paramedic. They were luring these girls, who were hooked on drugs and desperate, and offering them help, only his version of help was worse than the girls staying on the street.”
I push the note to him.
He reads it, eyes widening. “No, that would be impossible.”
“Was Ryan the head of the snake?” I ask.
