Chapter 3 - THE SECOND PHONEBy midnight, my house was empty except for police.
I wasn't there.
Neither was Lena.
Assistant District Attorney Nora Bell had been blunt: until investigators understood who was involved, we had to assume anyone connected to Travis’s records could be compromised.
That included local law enforcement.
It included county officials.
It possibly included people inside her own office.
So a state investigator named Marcus Vale drove Lena and me to Rebecca Collins’s farmhouse outside Richmond in an unmarked sedan.
Caleb followed separately.
Nobody used navigation apps.
Nobody posted online.
Nobody called family.
For the first time in my life, I understood what it felt like to disappear.
Rebecca opened her door just after 1:00 a.m.
She was sixty-two, silver-haired, and approximately five feet four inches tall, but when she saw Lena’s bandaged arm, she developed the presence of a woman twice her size.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Lena fell into her arms.
Rebecca had known my daughter since birth.
After Ellen died from ovarian cancer twelve years earlier, Rebecca had become the closest thing Lena had to a mother.
She didn't ask questions until Lena had eaten soup, swallowed her medication, and fallen asleep upstairs.
Then she came into the kitchen.
“Tell me everything.”
I did.
When I finished, Rebecca placed both hands flat on the kitchen table.
“I’m going to kill him.”
Caleb almost smiled.
“Get in line.”
Nora Bell arrived at 2:30 with a laptop and two state investigators.
We logged into the storage account.
There were 417 files.
The room went silent.
Lena had copied everything.
Texts.
Voice recordings.
Photographs.
Scans of checks.
Bank transfers.
Property records.
Short videos.
One folder was labeled CLIENTS.
Inside were fifteen subfolders.
Most had initials.
Three contained full names.
Nora recognized one immediately.
“That’s Councilman Peter Gaines.”
I knew Gaines.
Everybody did.
He had been on television every election season for a decade, smiling beside construction projects and promising safer neighborhoods.
“What would a councilman be doing with Travis?”
Nora didn't answer.
She opened the folder.
Inside was a chain of messages.
Travis had been hired to intimidate the owner of a small commercial property who refused to sell to a development partnership.
First came anonymous phone calls.
Then damage to the property.
Then threats.
Then somebody beat the owner’s adult son outside a bar.
Three weeks later, the family sold.
I felt sick.
Nora opened another file.
The payments had been disguised as landscaping invoices.
“What about the other names?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“We verify before we accuse anyone.”
Caleb nodded approvingly.
That was one reason I trusted him.
He didn't jump from suspicion to certainty.
He built facts.
By dawn, however, there were enough facts to tell us Travis had been living two lives.
To Lena, he was an increasingly controlling husband who ran a landscaping business.
To certain clients, he was a man who could make difficult people reconsider decisions.
Sometimes that meant threats.
Sometimes vandalism.
Sometimes violence.
And in at least one case, investigators feared it might have meant more.
A warehouse owner named Daniel Crowe had vanished eleven months earlier.
He had been involved in a zoning dispute.
His name appeared twice in Travis’s messages.
Nobody said murder.
Nobody needed to.
At 6:10 a.m., Marcus entered the kitchen carrying his phone.
“We have another problem.”
Nora looked up.
“What?”
“Travis made bond.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“His attorney got an emergency hearing.”
“He beat my daughter with a bat.”
“The charges filed last night were domestic assault and aggravated battery. Defense argued no prior convictions, established business, community ties.”
Caleb stood.
“Who approved the bond?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Judge Warren.”
Caleb’s expression changed.
“What?”
I looked between them.
“Who is Judge Warren?”
Caleb walked to the laptop.
He opened a photograph of the notebook.
Then zoomed in.
There it was.
Warren, D.
Beside it:
75,000.
Date: six months earlier.
Nora was already calling someone.
“No one contacts Warren directly,” she said. “Nobody.”
“Travis is free?” Lena asked from the doorway.
We all turned.
She stood on the stairs wearing one of Rebecca’s robes, her injured arm supported in a sling.
I crossed toward her.
“You should be resting.”
“I heard you.”
No one answered.
“Is Travis free?”
“For now,” Nora said.
Lena went pale.
“He’ll find me.”
“No,” Caleb replied.
“You don't understand.”
“I understand more than you think.”
“No, Uncle Cal. When Travis thinks someone betrayed him, he doesn't stop.”
Her breathing became shallow.
I put my hand on her shoulder.
“Lena.”
“He told me once.”
“What?”
She looked at us.
“He said the reason people lose is because they make threats they aren't willing to carry out.”
The room went still.
Nora closed the laptop.
“We need protection around this property.”
“No marked units,” Caleb said.
“Agreed.”
Rebecca crossed her arms.
“I have three bedrooms, two shotguns, six acres, and a very unfriendly goose.”
Despite everything, Lena laughed.
It lasted only a second.
But hearing it gave me something I hadn't realized I needed.
Proof that Travis hadn't taken every part of her.
At 8:00 a.m., investigators began making forensic copies of the files.
At 9:20, Nora received a call.
Her face changed as she listened.
“When?”
A pause.
“Was anyone hurt?”
Another pause.
“Secure everything.”
She ended the call.
“What happened?” I asked.
“My office was broken into overnight.”
Caleb swore under his breath.
“What was taken?”
“Nothing obvious.”
“Then they were looking for something.”
“The files,” Lena said.
Nora looked at her.
“Possibly.”
Lena sat at the kitchen table.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Then my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
Caleb held up a hand.
“Speaker.”
I answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then Travis spoke.
“Where is my wife?”
Lena stiffened.
Caleb gestured for everyone to remain quiet.
“She doesn't want to talk to you.”
“She’s confused.”
“No, Travis.”
“You've poisoned her against me.”
I almost lost control then.
But Caleb shook his head.
Keep him talking.
“You broke her arm.”
“She came at me.”
“With what?”
Silence.
Then Travis said something that made every investigator in the kitchen look up.
“You don't understand who you're messing with, Jack.”
I stared at the phone.
“Then explain it.”
“You think this is about me?”
My eyes went to Nora.
Travis laughed softly.
“I’m the smallest piece on the board.”
“Who else is involved?”
“You really think I’m going to tell you?”
“You called me.”
“Yes.”
His voice dropped.
“Because I’m giving you one chance.”
“To do what?”
“Delete whatever Lena copied.”
Nobody moved.
“How do you know she copied anything?”
Another pause.
Too long.
Then:
“Because she always runs to you.”
I looked at Lena.
Her face had gone white.
“What happens if I don't?”
Travis breathed slowly into the phone.
“You already lost one woman, Jack.”
The room vanished around me.
My wife.
Ellen.
Twelve years dead.
Cancer.
He knew exactly where to cut.
“Don't make yourself lose another.”
Click.
The call ended.
I didn't move.
Neither did anyone else.
Then Caleb gently took the phone from my hand.
“He threatened Lena.”
“He mentioned Ellen.”
“I know.”
I turned toward him.
Something hot and reckless was building inside my chest.
“I want him buried.”
Caleb stepped closer.
“Then we do it right.”
“He threatened my daughter.”
“And now we have it recorded.”
I looked at his phone.
He had recorded the entire call.
“We don't give Travis what he wants,” Caleb said. “We don't threaten him. We don't touch him. We don't become him.”
His eyes moved toward Lena.
“We build a case so strong that no friend, no judge, and no amount of money can make it disappear.”
That became our plan.
But Travis made his next move first.
At 11:43 that morning, an investigator monitoring my house called.
Someone had broken into my office.
Nothing was stolen.
Except one framed photograph.
A picture of Lena when she was eight years old.
On my desk, they had left something in its place.
A baseball.
May you like
Written across it in black marker were four words:
NEXT TIME, I WON’T MISS.
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