Mom Hung Up on My Call for Help to Toast My Cousin, So I Vanished novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: More at Noon

My mother called at 6:12 that morning.

I let it ring three times and then I answered, because I wanted her to hear that I would.

"What did you do?" she said.

No hello. No are you eating. Her voice was raw.

"Good morning, Mom."

"Do not be smart with me. Three neighbors just texted me. The pastor called the house phone, Cass, the house phone."

"I haven't posted anything."

"You gave her the file."

"Dad's lawyer had the file. Brynn wrote the clerk for it herself when she was fourteen."

She went quiet.

I heard her breathe, and I understood in that second that she hadn't known about the letter.

She had known about the crash. She had not known her niece had been holding it for four years.

"That's not true," she said, but she said it weakly.

"It's in the folder. It's dated. It's in her handwriting."

"She was a child."

"So was I, Mom."

"Your father hasn't come out of the garage. I knocked at midnight and I knocked at five." Her voice cracked. "The whole street is awake. There is a car parked across from our house, and a man in it with a phone."

Tyler had come close to listen.

"Mom, it's me," he said. "I'm with Cass."

"Tyler. Thank God. Come home."

"I can't yet."

"You can't? Your father..."

"Mom, I watched my own video. Brynn put a sticker on that cup." His voice shook. "I watched her do it, and I didn't tell you for two days."

She did not answer.

"Did you hear me on the phone?" I asked her. "On Saturday. At 8:43."

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