Chapter Twelve F: The Driver’s Sister
Deputy Kent found the pickup two hours later outside a tire shop on the eastern bypass.
The driver had already left, but the shop owner recognized the vehicle and provided a name.
His name was Colin Mercer, and his sister worked for a private transportation broker that had accepted emergency contracts during the Bellwether evacuation.
Kent called Samuel with the update while Emily was still at the motel.
“I want Maribel to come to the station tomorrow,” Kent said.
“She can bring a support person if she chooses.”
Maribel looked at Emily before the deputy finished speaking.
“Will you come?” she asked.
Emily hesitated.
She had never sat through a formal interview with a police officer.
She was also beginning to understand that people might assume she knew more than she did.
“I can come and sit beside you,” she said.
“But I can’t answer for you.”
Maribel nodded.
“That’s all I want.”
The next morning, Emily met Maribel outside the station beneath a bright blue awning.
The weather had finally cleared, but puddles remained in the cracks of the pavement.
Kent led them into a small room with a table and three chairs.
She placed a box of tissues near Maribel without comment.
“I want to start with the moment your brother arrived,” Kent said.
Maribel described Tomas carrying Alma up the apartment stairs.
She explained that he had brought a bag of diapers and intended to stay only an hour.
Then she described the building alarm, the shouting in the hallway, and the two men in yellow vests.
Kent asked her to identify the order in which events occurred.
Maribel struggled with the timing but remembered the man’s shoes.
“One of them had orange paint on the toes,” she said.
“He kept looking at the elevator.”
Kent wrote the detail down.
“Did he touch your brother?” she asked.
“No,” Maribel answered.
“He pointed at Alma and said she had to go to the pediatric van.”
Emily watched Maribel’s fingers curl around the edge of the table.
“Was there a pediatric van outside?” Kent asked.
“I saw a white van,” Maribel said.
“I never saw any nurses.”
Kent took a photograph from a folder and placed it on the table.
It showed Colin Mercer beside a pickup at a service station.
Maribel recognized him immediately.
“That’s the man who came to the motel,” she said.
“He was one of the two men in the hallway.”
Kent covered the photograph.
“Thank you,” she said.
“That gives us something we can check.”
Maribel leaned forward.
“Will you arrest him?”
“I can’t promise that today,” Kent answered.
“I can promise that we are looking for him.”
Emily saw disappointment cross Maribel’s face.
Then Maribel asked whether she could make another statement if she remembered something later.
“Absolutely,” Kent said.
“You don’t have to remember everything at once.”
Outside the interview room, Emily bought two bottles of water from a vending machine.
Maribel drank half of hers without speaking.
“You didn’t tell her about the empty carrier,” Emily said.
Maribel looked confused.
“What empty carrier?”
Emily explained Lucia’s drawing.
Maribel stared at her.
“Tomas would never carry Alma’s seat empty,” she said.
“He always kept her strapped in, even when she was asleep.”
Emily felt a fresh worry settle over the room.
“Then we need to tell Kent that too,” she said.
