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“He made her easier to target.”
I press both hands over my mouth.
A memory comes back.
Daniel sitting across from me in a diner two years ago.
He wore a gray suit and ordered black coffee.
He pushed a photograph across the table.
Not Sage.
Another blond girl.
He told me he thought she might be my daughter.
I knew she wasn’t my daughter.
“Sheriff.”
“Yes?”
“Did Daniel send other mothers photographs of the wrong girls?”
“We don’t know.”
“He sent me six.”
Sean looks at me.
“What?”
“Six photographs over five years. He said they might be Sage.”
“Were they?”
“No.”
“What happened to the girls in the photographs?”
“I don’t know.”
The truth is unbearable.
I was so focused on finding Sage that I never asked.
Vega speaks quietly.
“Can you give me their names?”
“I don’t have names. Only photographs.”
“Where are they?”
“My laptop.”
“Your laptop is in evidence. I’ll have an agent review it immediately.”
