Chapter 8 - he was closer than anyone knew)
The shelter went into lockdown within ninety seconds.
Police vehicles surrounded the building.
Residents were moved away from windows.
Rachel sat in an interior room with Lucy while officers searched streets, parking lots, rooftops, and nearby businesses.
They found no sign of Travis.
Detective Ruiz examined the photograph.
“The angle suggests it was taken from the second or third floor.”
Across the street stood a small office building, a closed dental clinic, and an inexpensive motel.
Police checked all three.
No Travis.
Then a motel clerk remembered a man wearing a baseball cap who paid cash for a room that morning.
The room was empty when officers entered.
Inside they found disposable gloves, bottled water, a prepaid phone package, and a map.
The map had several locations circled.
Rachel’s sister’s house.
The hospital.
The shelter.
Megan’s Colorado address.
Rachel stared at the final circle.
“He knows where Sophie lives.”
Ruiz immediately called Colorado authorities.
Megan and Sophie were moved to a secure location.
Rachel felt crushing guilt.
“He found them because of me.”
“No,” Ruiz said.
“He found them because he has been preparing for this.”
Investigators searched the motel room more carefully.
In the trash they found a receipt from a hardware store.
On surveillance footage, Travis had purchased duct tape, a flashlight, rope, two gasoline containers, and a shovel.
Rachel’s stomach turned.
Ruiz did not try to minimize it.
“He’s escalating.”
“Toward who?”
“Possibly you. Possibly witnesses. Possibly himself. We don’t assume.”
Rachel looked at Lucy.
“I want her somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere he can’t find.”
Arrangements were made to move Lucy temporarily into a secure pediatric safe-house program with Rachel accompanying her.
Before they left, Rachel called Megan.
“I’m sorry.”
Megan answered immediately.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“He knows where you live.”
“He knew years ago. We just didn’t know he was watching.”
Rachel frowned.
“What?”
“Police found something on my property.”
Rachel felt cold.
“A camera?”
“Not exactly.”
Six months earlier Megan had discovered a small GPS tracker beneath her car.
She assumed it was related to a dealership service system and threw it away.
Now investigators believed Travis had placed it there.
“He was checking on Sophie,” Rachel whispered.
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
Megan looked toward the room where Sophie was sitting.
“Because she was a loose end.”
Rachel suddenly understood.
Travis had not forgotten his first daughter.
He had been watching.
Waiting.
Perhaps making sure she never remembered enough.
The safe house was on the grounds of a larger medical facility with controlled access.
For the first time in days Rachel slept for three uninterrupted hours.
When she woke, Detective Ruiz was waiting.
“We found Travis’s prepaid phone.”
Rachel sat up.
“Where?”
“In a storm drain near the motel.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“It does.”
The device contained recently deleted searches.
How long after burial can remains identify cause of death.
Witness intimidation penalties.
International border crossings without passport.
And one search that made Ruiz especially concerned.
Can childhood memory be admitted in murder trial.
Rachel looked at her.
“He’s afraid of Sophie.”
“Yes.”
“Because she remembers the basement.”
“Probably.”
Ruiz continued.
“We also recovered a draft email.”
“To who?”
“No recipient.”
“What did it say?”
Ruiz handed her a printed copy.
Rachel read.
People think there is one truth. There isn’t. There is only the story that survives longest.
She looked up.
“He thinks he can rewrite everything.”
“He’s done it before.”
Rachel thought of Elaine.
Hannah.
Sophie.
Lucy.
Every time Travis was threatened by a woman leaving, another story appeared.
Elaine moved away.
Hannah disappeared voluntarily.
Sophie was clumsy.
Lucy fell.
Rachel was anxious.
One truth replaced by another until no one knew what to believe.
That evening Rachel received a call from her attorney.
The emergency protective order had been granted.
Temporary sole custody of Lucy was awarded to Rachel.
Travis was prohibited from contact.
It should have felt like victory.
Instead Rachel felt only dread.
Legal orders mattered to people willing to obey them.
Travis was hiding from a murder warrant.
A custody order meant nothing to him.
Near midnight, the hospital’s security system alerted staff to a vehicle that had entered using stolen employee credentials.
Police surrounded the parking structure.
The vehicle was found abandoned.
Inside was Travis’s black work jacket.
Rachel recognized it immediately.
In the pocket was his wedding ring.
Beside it sat a child’s yellow stuffed rabbit.
Rachel stared through the evidence bag.
“No.”
Detective Ruiz looked at her.
“What?”
Rachel pointed.
“Sophie had a yellow rabbit.”
Ruiz’s face changed.
They called Megan.
Sophie confirmed it.
The rabbit had disappeared the night Travis left her at the church seven years earlier.
Rachel’s blood turned to ice.
He had kept it.
For seven years.
Ruiz ordered a full search of the vehicle.
Under the passenger seat they found a handwritten note.
May you like
One sentence.
Ask Sophie where her mother wanted to run.
