Chapter 7 - The Phone in the Vent
Noah had been keeping a secret.
He revealed it the following morning.
Sarah was packing clothes at the motel when he stood behind her holding a tiny screwdriver.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“I did something bad.”
Sarah turned.
The expression on his face made her put the clothes down.
“What happened?”
“I recorded Richard.”
Silence.
“When?”
“A lot.”
Sarah sat beside him.
“How?”
Noah explained.
David had given him an old phone when he was seven.
After David died, the phone stopped working as a normal phone, but the recording app still functioned.
Months earlier, after hearing Richard threaten Sarah downstairs, Noah placed the device inside the heating vent near Richard’s office.
Every few days, he retrieved it.
He had recorded hours of muffled conversations.
“Where is it?”
“In my room.”
Police accompanied them back to the house.
The phone was exactly where Noah described.
Taped inside the vent.
Officer Collins connected it to a charger.
There were forty-three audio files.
Most contained nothing useful.
Doors closing.
Television noise.
Richard making work calls.
Then they reached a recording dated six weeks earlier.
Richard’s voice:
“She still won’t touch the trust.”
A second voice answered through speakerphone.
Male.
Older.
“If you rush her, she’ll notice.”
“She already notices.”
“Then use the house.”
“What if she refuses?”
“Pressure the mother, the child follows. Pressure the child, the mother signs.”
Sarah’s hands went numb.
The recording continued.
Richard:
“She’s not Claire.”
Voice:
“No. Claire was smarter.”
Richard laughed.
“Claire got lucky.”
Voice:
“No one gets lucky twice.”
Officer Collins paused the recording.
Sarah whispered,
“Martin.”
“We’ll compare voice samples.”
Noah stared at the table.
“There’s another one.”
He knew the date.
Three days before the assault.
Collins played it.
Richard was speaking to someone inside his office.
Not over the phone.
A woman.
“You were seen outside the school.”
“I was careful.”
“Noah talked to you.”
“He’s ten.”
“He remembers everything.”
A pause.
Then the woman said,
“Friday is the deadline.”
Richard:
“And if Sarah refuses?”
Woman:
“Shaw said scare her.”
Richard:
“I’ve been scaring her for months.”
Woman:
“Then scare the boy.”
Sarah stopped the recording.
Noah stared at her.
She wrapped both arms around him.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For every time I told you everything was fine.”
Noah leaned against her.
“I knew it wasn’t.”
That hurt more than anything Richard had done.
Officer Collins quietly left them alone for several minutes.
When Sarah came out, Collins was on the phone.
She ended the call.
“We matched the female voice to Olivia Vale.”
“Richard’s sister?”
“Yes.”
“And Martin?”
“Preliminary match is strong.”
Sarah looked toward Noah.
“So now you can arrest them?”
“Richard, maybe on additional charges. Olivia if we find her. Martin if we find him.”
“If.”
Collins nodded.
“That’s the problem.”
Police obtained another warrant connected to Richard’s devices.
His call records led to a prepaid phone.
That phone had contacted Martin Shaw twelve times in the month before the assault.
It had also contacted a number registered to a private investigation company.
The company’s owner was dead.
But the phone remained active.
Its last location ping was near the motel where Sarah and Noah were staying.
Officer Collins immediately moved them to a protected apartment.
Helen went with them.
Noah tried to joke about having a secret hideout.
Nobody laughed.
At 4:12 that afternoon, Richard was arrested again for violating the protection order.
He had not approached Sarah directly.
Instead, police found evidence he paid someone to locate her motel.
Richard denied everything.
During questioning, he requested an attorney.
Not Martin Shaw.
A woman named Rebecca Sloan.
Sarah recognized the name.
David had mentioned Rebecca once.
Years ago.
“She worked with him.”
Officer Collins looked at Sarah.
“David?”
“Yes. On an investigation.”
Rebecca arrived at the station.
Forty-six years old.
Dark hair.
Composed.
She entered the interview room with Richard and closed the door.
Through the observation glass, Richard looked furious.
Rebecca said something.
Richard became still.
Then she placed a single piece of paper on the table.
Richard read it.
His face lost all color.
Sarah watched from the hallway.
“What did she show him?”
Collins shook her head.
“Attorney-client privilege.”
But when Rebecca left an hour later, she stopped when she saw Sarah.
For several seconds, neither woman spoke.
Then Rebecca approached.
“David told me you were stronger than you knew.”
Sarah’s throat tightened.
“You knew my husband?”
Rebecca nodded.
“What did he discover?”
Rebecca looked toward the cameras in the corridor.
“I can’t talk here.”
“Why are you representing Richard?”
Rebecca’s eyes hardened.
“Because I need him to believe I’m the same person I was three years ago.”
Sarah stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca stepped closer.
“David did not die before he finished his investigation.”
Sarah stopped breathing.
Rebecca lowered her voice.
“He hid it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what do you know?”
Rebecca looked toward Noah.
“I know Richard is terrified of that red box.”
Sarah grabbed her arm.
“Where is it?”
Rebecca gently removed Sarah’s hand.
“I don’t know.”
May you like
Then she whispered the sentence that changed everything again.
“But Martin Shaw does.”
