Chapter 5 - Rachel's Warning
I listened to Rachel's recording the next morning.
Hale warned me first.
"You don't have to hear this."
"Yes, I do."
We sat inside a small interview room at the police station.
He pressed play.
Static.
Then Rachel's voice.
Young.
Tired.
Terrified.
"If you're hearing this, it means I finally got brave enough to stop pretending Vivian is harmless."
I stared at the recorder.
"She has been taking money from accounts Dad left us. I confronted her. She cried. She apologized. Then she threatened me."
Rachel breathed shakily.
"She said I had more to lose because I have Nora."
My hands curled into fists.
The recording continued.
"I changed my will. Vivian is not supposed to control Nora's inheritance. If something happens to me, call Grace."
The recording ended.
"Grace who?" I asked.
"We found her."
Hale opened a folder.
"Grace Bennett. Rachel's college roommate."
"Where is she?"
"Colorado."
"Has she spoken to you?"
"Yes."
Grace had spent years believing Nora had been taken by her biological father's relatives.
Vivian told her that.
Grace tried to challenge the guardianship after Rachel's death.
Then Vivian produced documents showing Rachel had supposedly changed her wishes.
Grace couldn't afford a long legal fight.
Three months later, Nora vanished.
Grace never stopped searching.
When Hale called her, she cried for almost ten minutes.
"Is she coming?"
"She's flying in."
I looked at the photograph of Rachel.
"Could Vivian have caused the accident?"
"We reopened the case."
That meant yes, at least as a possibility.
But Nora was still missing.
Nothing mattered more.
Police searched the farmhouse.
No Nora.
The red box had been hidden beneath loose boards in a closet.
Investigators believed Nora must have known about it because Rachel had shown her the hiding place before her death.
That explained Vivian's message.
You don't know what Nora did.
Nora had remembered something Vivian needed.
Evidence.
Maybe Vivian had kept her alive because she couldn't find the box.
Maybe because killing a missing child would create risks she didn't want.
Every explanation was terrible.
Then a detective discovered surveillance footage from a gas station thirty miles away.
Vivian's SUV.
Time stamp: forty-three minutes after she fled our house.
The passenger seat appeared empty.
But in one frame, a small face was visible through the rear window.
Nora.
Alive.
I gripped the edge of Hale's desk.
"That's her?"
"We believe so."
"Where was she going?"
"The highway splits twelve miles later."
One direction led north.
The other toward the lake.
Vivian's family owned a cabin near that lake.
Police were already on their way.
I drove back to Megan's.
Ellie ran to the door.
"Did you find her?"
"Not yet."
Her face fell.
"But we saw her."
Ellie blinked.
"She's alive."
"Really?"
"Really."
She threw her arms around me.
For the first time since this began, I felt hope instead of dread.
It lasted seventeen minutes.
Then Hale called.
The cabin was empty.
But someone had been there recently.
A child's cereal bowl sat in the sink.
A blanket was still warm beside the fireplace.
Vivian had stayed ahead of them.
"She knows the properties are being searched," Hale said.
"Then she's going somewhere not connected to her."
"Probably."
"Who would help her?"
We both knew the answer.
Family.
Friends.
Someone who believed her story.
Someone who thought Vivian was a desperate mother being persecuted by police.
We checked her closest friend, Serena.
Nothing.
Two former coworkers.
Nothing.
A cousin named Beth.
Nothing.
Then Megan walked into the room holding Ellie's tablet.
"Daniel."
"What?"
"Someone messaged her."
My blood went cold.
The account name was MommyV.
The message contained only one sentence.
Do you want to see Nora?
My hands shook.
Hale instructed us not to respond until investigators could trace the account.
Another message arrived.
Daddy is keeping you away from me.
Ellie saw it.
"Mommy?"
I crouched immediately.
"You don't have to read that."
"Is she mad?"
"No."
I stopped myself.
I wasn't going to lie for Vivian anymore.
"She might be."
"At me?"
"Never because of anything you did."
Ellie's eyes filled.
"I gave Nora bread."
"You did the right thing."
"But Vivian said I ruined everything."
I took my daughter's hands.
"Listen to me. Feeding someone who is hungry is never something you should feel ashamed of."
She sniffled.
"What if Vivian comes here?"
"She won't get to you."
That evening, police traced the message through public Wi-Fi.
A roadside motel.
Officers arrived twelve minutes after Vivian had left.
Inside the room, they found two beds.
Food wrappers.
A girl's sweater.
And blood on a towel.
Not much.
But enough to send terror through everyone.
The blood was rushed for testing.
Hours later, Hale called.
"It's Nora's."
I couldn't speak.
"Daniel, listen. There's no indication of a major injury. It may be from a cut or bloody nose."
"Or Vivian hurt her."
"We don't know."
I pressed my forehead against the wall.
Then Hale continued.
"They recovered something else from the trash."
"What?"
"A pharmacy receipt."
The purchase had been made less than an hour earlier.
Children's fever medication.
Bandages.
Bottled water.
And gasoline.
The gas station was in a town called Bellridge.
I knew the name.
I had heard Vivian mention it once.
Years earlier.
Her father had owned land there.
Not a house.
Not officially.
Just twenty acres of woods.
I told Hale.
Police pulled the property records.
There was a structure after all.
An old hunting lodge.
It wasn't listed under Vivian.
It belonged to a shell company created by Evelyn Monroe twenty years ago.
Officers headed there immediately.
I sat awake with my phone in my hand.
At 1:14 a.m., Hale called.
"We found the SUV."
My heart stopped.
"Vivian?"
"No."
"Nora?"
A pause.
"We found footprints."
"Whose?"
"One adult."
May you like
"One child."
"They lead into the woods."
