Chapter 5 - Rebecca’s Last Notebook
Rebecca Mercer had disappeared on a cold Tuesday in October.
She left home at 7:10 in the evening, telling Daniel she was meeting a source connected to her investigation. She promised to return before Luke woke for his midnight feeding.
At 11:40, her car was found beside County Road 14.
The driver’s door was open.
Her phone and handbag were inside.
Rebecca was gone.
For four years, Daniel had wondered whether she had been taken, whether she had run, or whether she had discovered something so dangerous that disappearing had been her only choice.
The message from her old number made one possibility feel suddenly real.
Someone had kept the phone.
Cole traced the message, but the signal bounced between several local towers.
“It could have been sent from anywhere within ten miles,” she said.
“It was sent because we found the tunnel.”
“Most likely.”
Daniel opened Rebecca’s final notebook.
The last pages were written in a hurried hand.
Silas used the camp as a sorting place.
Evelyn signed the statements.
Amos moved the children through the storm tunnels.
Jamie is not one child. Jamie is the name they reuse.
Daniel read the final sentence twice.
“What does it mean?” Reed asked.
“They changed children’s identities.”
Cole examined the earlier pages. “A repeated first name would make records harder to follow. Reports from different counties might appear to describe the same child.”
Daniel felt sick.
“How many?”
“We don’t know.”
A fire captain approached them.
“The administration building is lost. We found evidence of accelerant.”
“Anyone inside?” Cole asked.
“No. But there’s a concrete stairwell beneath the rear office. It has been sealed with a steel plate.”
The team moved toward the burned building.
Evelyn was transported to the station, still insisting she had been framed.
Daniel did not believe she had worked alone.
At the administration building, heat rolled from the collapsed roof. Firefighters cleared a path to the rear stairwell.
The steel plate looked new.
Reed found a keypad beside it.
Four numbers were required.
Daniel studied Rebecca’s notebook.
She had circled several dates, but none opened the lock.
Then he remembered Luke’s birthday.
He entered 0618.
The keypad flashed red.
Cole tried the date Black Pine originally opened.
Wrong.
Daniel looked at the blue crayon dinosaur Luke had drawn in the chapel.
Rex had four green spikes on his back.
Luke always insisted Rex had four because he was four years old when Daniel gave him the toy.
Daniel entered 0004.
The lock clicked.
The steel plate lifted, revealing concrete stairs descending beneath the burned building.
Cold air rose from below.
The emergency microphone on the tracker activated again.
Luke was breathing rapidly.
A child whispered beside him.
“Don’t cry. She hears crying.”
Luke answered, “My dad is coming.”
“How do you know?”
“He always finds the footprints.”
Daniel closed his eyes for one second.
Then another voice sounded through the tracker.
A woman speaking from farther away.
“Prepare the lower room. Vale wants them moved before midnight.”
Cole heard it too.
“Pastor Vale is here.”
A second voice answered.
“What about Evelyn?”
“She was careless. She knew the risk.”
Daniel looked toward the dark stairwell.
Evelyn had not brought Luke to the camp to protect him.
She had delivered him.
The officers began descending.
Halfway down, they found the missing camera broken against the wall.
At the bottom of the stairs stood a steel gate.
A photograph had been taped to it.
Daniel removed it.
May you like
The image showed Rebecca standing beside Evelyn and Pastor Vale at Black Pine Camp.
The date printed in the corner was three months after Rebecca disappeared.
