Chapter 10 - sophie refused to be his secret)
Colorado police found the vehicle thirty miles from the secure residence where Megan and Sophie had been moved.
Travis was not inside.
The discovery triggered another massive search.
Roadblocks.
Transit checks.
Hotel records.
Surveillance footage.
For two days there was nothing.
Then Sophie made a request.
She wanted to speak to Detective Ruiz directly.
The call was arranged with Megan and a trauma counselor present.
Rachel was not supposed to participate, but Sophie asked for her.
When the screen connected, Sophie looked tired.
“I remembered something else.”
Ruiz spoke gently.
“What?”
“The night Dad left me.”
Sophie held the yellow stuffed rabbit police had returned as evidence temporarily for identification.
She was not allowed to keep it yet.
Investigators had found fibers and old biological traces on it.
“I thought he drove straight to the church,” Sophie said. “He didn’t.”
“Where did he go?”
“A house.”
“What kind of house?”
“Small. White.”
“Do you know where?”
“No.”
“What happened there?”
“He talked to a man.”
“Did you hear the conversation?”
“Some.”
Sophie frowned.
“Dad said he needed a new name.”
Ruiz’s eyes sharpened.
“What did the man say?”
“He said this was the last time.”
“Anything else?”
Sophie thought.
“He called Dad by another name.”
“Bennett?”
“No.”
Everyone went silent.
Rachel leaned closer.
“What name?”
Sophie whispered, “Evan.”
The investigation changed instantly.
Travis had another identity.
Evan Carter.
Records showed an Evan Carter with Travis’s date of birth had rented properties in three states.
One address stood out.
A small white house in Indiana.
Police searched it.
The current owner had no connection.
But property records from seven years earlier identified a former tenant.
Nathan Cole.
He had a criminal record for identity fraud and document forgery.
Nathan had died two years earlier.
Police searched archived case files and found photographs of seized documents from his home.
One photograph showed a stack of forged identification cards.
On top was a driver’s license.
Evan Carter.
Travis’s face.
Rachel stared at it.
“How many lives did he build?”
“As many as he thought he needed,” Ruiz said.
A database search using the Evan Carter identity uncovered an account that had remained dormant until three days earlier.
Someone had withdrawn cash in Denver.
Security video showed Travis.
He had changed his hair and was wearing glasses.
But there was no mistake.
He was alive.
He was close.
Then something unexpected happened.
Instead of hiding, Travis called a local television station.
He claimed he was being framed.
The station did not broadcast the full interview because police intervened, but portions leaked online.
Travis described Rachel as unstable.
He said Lucy accidentally ingested medication.
He accused Claire of obsession.
He called Sophie’s memories manipulated.
He claimed Hannah had abused him and disappeared voluntarily.
Rachel watched thirty seconds before turning it off.
Her hands were cold.
Even now, he was telling a new story.
Maribel, the counselor, sat beside her.
“You don’t have to watch.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I spent years believing him.”
Rachel reopened the clip.
She watched again.
This time she noticed things she would once have missed.
The strategic pauses.
The wounded tone.
The vague statements.
The way he answered emotional questions with carefully rehearsed phrases.
He did not sound innocent.
He sounded practiced.
Rachel sent a message to Megan.
Do not watch the interview.
Megan replied.
Too late.
Then another message appeared.
Sophie wants to say something publicly.
Rachel immediately called.
“No.”
Megan looked exhausted.
“I said the same thing.”
Sophie appeared beside her.
“I’m tired of him saying I don’t remember.”
Rachel softened.
“You don’t owe anyone proof.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to fight him.”
“I’m not.”
Sophie looked directly into the camera.
“I’m fighting for me.”
The words silenced Rachel.
Sophie did not give a television interview.
Instead, through her attorney and therapist, she provided a recorded statement to investigators for potential court use.
She described the basement.
The church.
The juice.
Her mother’s fear.
She described waking at night and hearing Hannah crying behind a locked bedroom door.
She described Travis telling her that if she told anyone family secrets, her mother would disappear.
Then Sophie said something no one expected.
“He had Mom’s necklace after she was gone.”
Megan stared at her.
“What necklace?”
“The silver one Grandma gave her.”
Megan began crying.
Hannah’s necklace had never been found.
Sophie remembered Travis placing it inside a black metal box.
“Where?”
“In the white house.”
Police returned to the Indiana property with the owner’s permission.
They searched the basement.
Behind an old heating vent, they found a black metal box.
Inside were forged documents.
Cash.
Several keys.
And Hannah’s silver necklace.
There was also a photograph.
Elaine Bennett.
Travis’s mother.
Standing beside Hawthorne Machine Works shortly before her disappearance.
On the back, someone had written:
She thought she could leave too.
Handwriting analysis later matched Travis.
The case against him was growing.
Two murders.
Child endangerment.
Poisoning.
Identity fraud.
Stalking.
Witness intimidation.
Financial crimes.
But he was still free.
Then, at 3:06 the next morning, a motion sensor activated outside Megan’s secure residence.
Police found a cut section of fence.
Footprints crossed the grass.
A window screen had been removed.
Travis had come for Sophie.
He never made it inside.
May you like
But he left something on the porch.
A small bottle of orange juice.
