Chapter 4 - The Woman in the PhotographDetective Ortiz wanted me nowhere near the cottage after we saw the message.
I disagreed.
Loudly.
“We’re three days behind whoever did this.”
“And running into traps won’t get Rebecca back.”
“My children were left alone.”
“I know.”
“My daughter nearly died.”
“I know.”
“And somebody has my ex-wife.”
Ortiz stepped closer.
“That’s exactly why you need to stop acting like you have nothing to lose.”
That shut me up.
Because I had two children sleeping seventy miles away who had already lost one parent.
They couldn’t lose another.
Crime-scene technicians found almost nothing.
Whoever tore apart the porch wore gloves.
The spray paint had been purchased with cash.
A neighbor’s camera caught a dark vehicle arriving the previous afternoon, but the plate was covered.
We headed back toward Willow Creek at sunrise.
Halfway home, Ortiz’s phone rang.
She listened.
Then looked at me.
“We found Travis.”
“Where?”
“His apartment.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
The relief lasted three seconds.
“He says Rebecca stole money from Vale Development and disappeared.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
“He also says he hasn’t seen her since Monday.”
“We have him in the SUV.”
“He claims he got out ten minutes later.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe interviews are more useful when suspects think they’re smarter than us.”
Travis Lane was waiting in an interrogation room when we arrived.
I watched through one-way glass.
He wore expensive clothes badly.
He was the kind of man who thought a watch could substitute for a personality.
“Rebecca was unstable,” he told Ortiz.
My jaw clenched.
“She became paranoid.”
“About?”
“Richard. The company. Money.”
“Was she stealing?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said she stole.”
“I said that’s what Richard suspected.”
Ortiz placed the gas-station photo down.
“You were in this SUV.”
Travis looked.
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves you lied.”
He leaned back.
“I rode with Richard because he wanted to speak with Rebecca. She’d taken confidential documents.”
“Where did you go?”
“Parking garage downtown.”
“And then?”
“Rebecca left.”
“With whom?”
“Alone.”
“At almost ten at night?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you report her missing?”
“She wasn’t missing. She was running.”
Ortiz slid another document across the table.
“Then why did you access her cloud account Tuesday morning?”
His face twitched.
Tiny.
But I saw it.
So did Ortiz.
“I didn’t.”
“Her login history says otherwise.”
Silence.
Then he asked for a lawyer.
We left.
Outside the room, I said, “He knows.”
“Yes.”
“Arrest him.”
“For accessing an account? Maybe. For Rebecca’s disappearance? We need more.”
The blue folder provided it.
One document listed an internal audit conducted eight months earlier.
The auditor was a woman named Julia Mercer.
She had died seven months ago.
Car accident.
Ortiz pulled the report.
Single vehicle.
Rainy night.
No witnesses.
Julia’s sister lived thirty miles away.
We visited her.
When Ortiz mentioned Rebecca’s name, the woman began crying.
“You’re finally asking.”
“What?”
“Julia told me somebody at Vale was stealing millions.”
“Did she name Richard?”
“No.”
“Rebecca?”
“She said Rebecca was helping her.”
That changed everything.
Julia wasn’t investigating Rebecca.
She was working with her.
The sister brought out a photograph.
Julia and Rebecca at a restaurant.
A date written on the back.
Two weeks before Julia died.
There was another woman in the picture.
I recognized her.
Margaret Vale.
Richard’s wife.
My confusion must have shown.
Julia’s sister nodded grimly.
“That’s what I never understood.”
“Why was Richard’s wife meeting with them?”
“She wanted out.”
“Out of what?”
“I don’t know.”
Then she handed Ortiz a flash drive.
“Julia told me if anyone ever came asking about Rebecca, give them this.”
Back at the station, cybercrime opened the drive.
It contained one audio file.
The voices were quiet.
Rebecca.
Julia.
Margaret.
Julia spoke first.
“We have enough to expose him.”
Margaret answered.
“You don’t understand Richard. Exposure isn’t enough. He’ll destroy everyone first.”
Rebecca said, “Then we go to federal investigators.”
“No,” Margaret replied. “Not until we have the ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“The real one.”
A pause.
Then Margaret whispered:
“The list of everyone he paid.”
The recording ended.
Ortiz stared at the screen.
“Judges? Inspectors? Politicians?”
“Could be anyone.”
The door burst open.
Another detective entered.
“Ortiz.”
He whispered something to her.
She went still.
“What?”
“We got a hit on Rebecca’s car.”
My heart jumped.
“Where?”
“Airport parking lot.”
Twenty minutes later, we were watching security footage.
Rebecca’s car entered the lot Tuesday at 2:11 a.m.
The driver stepped out wearing Rebecca’s hoodie.
At first glance, it looked like her.
Then the person turned toward the camera.
It was a man.
Travis.
He locked the car, walked to another vehicle, and vanished.
He had staged Rebecca’s disappearance.
But the next camera angle showed something unexpected.
Another person followed him.
A woman in a baseball cap.
The camera caught her face for barely one second.
Margaret Vale.
May you like
Richard’s wife.
The woman who had supposedly died of a sudden heart attack six weeks earlier.
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