Chapter 11 - The Second Phone
Ryan denied owning the phone.
He denied being at the house.
He denied setting the fire.
Unfortunately for him, Ava had taken a photograph through the upstairs window before the smoke began.
The photograph showed Ryan near the basement entrance.
Time stamped 9:16 p.m.
The fire department determined the fire had been intentionally started at approximately 9:19.
By midnight, Ryan was sitting in an interview room at Briarwood Police Headquarters.
Margaret was at Arthur’s house with Emily and the children.
The fire damaged only part of the basement.
The safe survived.
So did the tape.
But the police investigation now prevented Margaret from returning home.
Ava’s recovered phone changed everything.
It was not Ryan’s normal device.
It contained no contact names.
Only numbers.
Most messages had been deleted.
A forensic examiner recovered fragments.
One appeared repeatedly.
FIND KEY.
Another:
DO NOT LET MARGARET OPEN 214.
Another:
IF THE OAK CONTRACT SURFACES, USE EMILY.
Margaret stared at the printed messages.
Emily sat beside her.
“Use me how?”
Arthur turned the page.
The next recovered message answered.
MENTAL CAPACITY PETITION.
Emily’s face drained.
Margaret understood.
They planned to declare her incompetent.
Take control through Emily.
Then Ryan would control Emily.
Arthur read another.
LINDA HAS DOCTOR.
Margaret looked up.
“Doctor?”
Emily whispered, “Dr. Carver.”
“Who?”
“Ryan wanted you to see a neurologist.”
Margaret remembered.
Three months earlier, Emily had suggested a memory evaluation after Margaret misplaced her car keys twice.
Margaret had laughed it off.
Emily had not pushed.
“Was that Ryan’s idea?”
Emily began crying.
“Yes.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Ryan had been building the case.
Lost keys.
Missed appointments.
Age.
A worried daughter.
A friendly doctor.
Arthur flipped through the report.
“There’s more.”
One recovered draft email was addressed to a law office.
It requested information on emergency guardianship.
The proposed petitioner was Emily.
The beneficiary of property-management authority would be Caldwell Development Holdings.
Margaret looked at her daughter.
Emily whispered, “I swear I didn’t know.”
Margaret believed her.
That was almost worse.
Ryan had used Emily as a weapon without her knowledge.
Arthur turned another page.
A photograph appeared.
An old photograph.
The same gray-haired man Ryan had met months earlier.
Arthur looked at Margaret.
“That could be Daniel.”
Margaret stared.
The face was older.
Thinner.
But the eyes.
Daniel’s eyes.
She knew.
“It’s him.”
Emily leaned closer.
“Uncle Daniel?”
Margaret nodded.
The forensic examiner had recovered a message beneath the image.
FROM D.H. CONTACT.
Margaret’s heart accelerated.
Ryan had been communicating with Daniel.
Arthur shook his head.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Margaret thought about the call.
You finally opened Thomas’s wall.
Daniel knew.
Maybe Daniel had been the man guiding Ryan.
Maybe he wanted the documents.
Maybe Thomas’s warning had been wrong.
Or incomplete.
Arthur’s phone rang.
Police.
He answered.
Listened.
His expression tightened.
“What?”
Margaret stood.
Arthur ended the call.
“Ryan’s gone.”
Emily stared.
“What do you mean gone?”
“They were transporting him to county intake.”
“And?”
“The vehicle was hit at an intersection.”
Margaret’s blood went cold.
“By who?”
“Another SUV.”
“Ryan?”
“Escaped during the confusion.”
Emily covered her mouth.
Arthur continued.
“One officer is injured.”
Margaret looked toward the sleeping children in the next room.
“Is he coming here?”
Security had already doubled.
Arthur shook his head.
“If he’s smart, he’ll leave the state.”
Margaret looked at Ryan’s second phone.
“No.”
“What?”
“He won’t leave.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he still needs something.”
Arthur looked at the recovered message.
The key had already been found.
Box 214 opened.
The contract recovered.
What remained?
Margaret looked at Daniel’s note again.
DAD IS NOT THE ONLY ONE.
CHARLES CALDWELL IS INVOLVED.
Then she remembered Linda’s reaction to Daniel’s photograph.
“Linda.”
Emily frowned.
“What about her?”
“Ryan will go to his mother.”
Arthur immediately called police.
Too late.
Linda Caldwell’s home was empty.
Her security system had been disabled.
May you like
The garage door stood open.
And inside the kitchen, investigators found blood.
