Chapter 9 - Natalie's Disappearance)
Natalie had missed two calls from her attorney.
Then visitation.
Then a scheduled police interview.
Her apartment door was unlocked.
Her phone was gone.
Her car remained parked outside.
Inside, nothing looked obviously disturbed.
No overturned furniture.
No broken windows.
No blood.
Her wallet was on the kitchen counter.
Her keys were missing.
Her purse was not.
The same purse investigators found inside the abandoned SUV.
Jack received the information while sitting with Sarah and Detective Blake.
"Do you think Derek took her?"
Blake did not answer directly.
"We're investigating."
"Was the blood hers?"
"Preliminary type is consistent. DNA isn't back."
Jack's stomach turned.
Sarah studied him.
"You okay?"
"No."
Jack surprised himself with the answer.
He hated Natalie.
Part of him did.
But hate and history could occupy the same body.
He remembered Sophie being born.
Natalie crushing his hand during labor.
Their first apartment.
The night Jack's father died.
Natalie sitting beside him until dawn.
There had been good years.
That was what made betrayal hurt.
People rarely grieved monsters.
They grieved people who had once been safe.
Jack asked, "What do I tell Sophie?"
Sarah looked at Blake.
Blake answered.
"Tell her her mother is missing and police are looking."
"That's it?"
"That's all we know."
Sophie did not cry immediately.
She stared at Jack.
"Missing like lost?"
Jack sat beside her.
"Missing like we don't know where she is."
"Did Derek take her?"
"We don't know."
Sophie looked toward the floor.
Then whispered, "I said I hated her."
Jack's heart clenched.
"When?"
"Last time I saw Grandma. I said I hated Mom."
"That doesn't make anything happen."
"What if she heard?"
"Then she heard an angry child."
Sophie started crying.
Jack pulled her close.
"You can be angry at somebody and still want them safe."
"Do you want her safe?"
Jack closed his eyes.
"Yes."
That answer mattered to Sophie.
It also mattered to Jack.
He realized he meant it.
Not because he wanted Natalie back.
That marriage was gone.
Because he refused to let Derek decide another ending.
Police recovered surveillance footage from near Natalie's apartment.
At 8:42 p.m., Natalie left alone.
At 8:49, she returned.
At 9:03, a dark SUV arrived.
Natalie walked outside.
She did not appear forced.
She entered the passenger seat.
The SUV left.
No footage showed her returning.
Investigators believed Derek contacted her and convinced her to meet.
Why would she go?
Jack knew.
Because Natalie still wanted answers.
Where was the money?
Why had he abandoned her?
Had any part of their relationship been real?
Those questions could make people reckless.
The blood in the SUV was eventually confirmed as Natalie's.
But the amount was small.
Not enough to establish serious injury.
A cut.
A nosebleed.
Something uncertain.
Then officers found a receipt in the vehicle.
A gas station seventy-four miles east.
Timestamp: 11:18 p.m.
Security footage showed Derek entering the store.
Alone.
He bought water.
Bandages.
A prepaid phone.
He looked nervous.
He also had scratches on his neck.
The search moved east.
Federal authorities circulated alerts.
Jack stayed out of it.
Officially.
Emotionally, he could not.
Every call made him jump.
Every unknown number froze him.
Sophie began sleeping badly again.
Then, thirty hours after Natalie disappeared, Jack received a call.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Silence.
"Hello?"
Breathing.
Then a whisper.
"Jack."
He stood.
Natalie.
"Where are you?"
"I don't know."
Her voice was weak.
"Are you hurt?"
"Yes."
"Is Derek there?"
Silence.
"Natalie."
"He left."
"Where are you?"
"I don't know."
Jack signaled Sarah, who was across the room.
She immediately called Detective Blake from another phone.
Jack kept Natalie talking.
"What can you see?"
"Trees."
"Road?"
"Yes."
"Buildings?"
"A gas station."
"What name?"
"I can't see."
"Look around."
Natalie breathed painfully.
"He hit me."
Jack closed his eyes.
"Stay awake."
"He said I ruined everything."
"Where's your phone?"
"This isn't mine. I found it."
"What happened?"
Natalie began crying.
"He wanted the files."
"What files?"
"The copies I gave police."
"He thought you still had them?"
"Yes."
"Did you?"
"No."
A vehicle passed near Natalie.
Jack heard it.
"Can you see road signs?"
She moved.
Then gasped.
"Route 19."
Sarah wrote it down and relayed it.
"Anything else?"
Natalie looked.
"There's a church sign."
"What does it say?"
"Grace... Grace Fellowship."
Detective Blake gave a thumbs up over Sarah's phone.
They had a location.
Jack kept talking.
"Sophie is safe."
Natalie cried harder.
"Don't tell her."
"Tell her what?"
"What I did."
Jack stared ahead.
"She already knows some."
"No. The money."
"She doesn't know details."
"Don't let her think..."
Natalie's voice broke.
"Don't let her think I did it because of her."
Jack's anger rose.
"Nothing about this was because of Sophie."
"I know."
"Then if you ever get the chance, you tell her yourself."
Natalie became silent.
Jack thought the call had dropped.
"Natalie?"
"I'm here."
Sirens appeared faintly through the phone.
Natalie started sobbing.
"They found me."
Jack sat down.
Paramedics reached her minutes later.
She had a cut above one eyebrow.
Bruising.
A fractured wrist.
Dehydration.
Derek had left her behind an abandoned service station after she refused to tell him where investigators had taken the storage-unit evidence.
He had assumed she had copies.
She didn't.
Before paramedics transported her, Natalie gave police one additional detail.
Derek had repeatedly called someone named Ray.
He said he needed a place to "finish the exit."
Investigators searched Derek's contacts.
Raymond Cole.
Derek's older brother.
Owner of a hunting cabin near the Kentucky border.
By the time police reached it, the cabin was empty.
But the fireplace was warm.
Food remained on the table.
A laptop charger was plugged into the wall.
And beside the back door, officers found something Jack immediately recognized from the evidence photograph.
His passport.
Derek had dropped it while leaving.
May you like
He was running fast now.
And frightened men made mistakes.
