Free The Single Staircase by Matt Ingwalson

for us. H e did it so we could be together again.”
    The lawyer just said, “He’s offering you this much money. It’s a lot of money. Take it or I’ll see you in court.”
    She took it.
    A week after that, Daphne Grey was seen at the Carrot Room, dancing and drinking.
     
    Chap. 66
     
    Eighteen years later, a group of teenage girls walked into a post office and applied for passports so they could take their sen ior class trip to France.
    Somewhere deep in a computer, one of their social security numbers triggered a long lost file.
    Sophia Grey. Missing person.
    A n aging bureaucrat double-checked the fingerprints, and then asked the healthy, happy girl standing in front of him if she’d ever been missing.
    “No,” she answered. And then she looked at her friends and laughed at the oddity of the question.
    The bureaucrat shrugged and thought, “Probably one of those custody spats. Dad takes off with kid, mom freaks out and files a report, dad shows up the next day, and nobody bothered to close the damn thing.”
    He helpfully deleted the case forever.
     
    Chap. 67
     
    That night, after the final interrogation of David Grey, after Owl and Raccoon had decided what they had to do, after they’d picked up their jackets and rubbed their eyes and started to walk to their cars, Raccoon had said, “You owe me a dollar.”
    Owl had said, “I don’t.”
    “You said I prove they didn’t kill her, you’d give me a dollar. Give me my dollar, Owl.”
    “But they did do it. Dad did it. I was right. I’ll keep my dollar.”
    “But he didn’t do what you thought he did. He didn’t murder the kid.”
    “ No, he wasted three days of our lives investigating a kidnapping that never happened.”
    “No, no. I was investigating a kidnapping. You were investigating a murder. And you were wrong, so give me my dollar.”
    Owl had reached in his po cket and pulled out his wallet. “I don’t owe you a dollar at all. I said one of them was guilty, that there was no mystery kidnapper, and I was right. But I’m going to give you one anyway because it feels good.”
    Owl had smiled and was so glad he wasn ’t drinking or on SWAT anymore. He had handed a dollar to Raccoon and then Owl had got into his car and pulled out his cell phone and called each of his kids, waking them up just so he could tell them how very much he loved them.

The End
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