Chapter 6 - The Woman Before Emma
Her name was Rachel Bell.
Teresa remembered because some cases refused to disappear.
Rachel had been twenty-nine.
Pregnant with her second child.
Married to a man named Jonah Bell, a financial adviser with no criminal history and an excellent reputation.
Rachel contacted a shelter after claiming Jonah had restricted her access to money, isolated her from family, and threatened to have her declared unstable.
The pattern sounded almost identical.
There had been anonymous complaints.
Questionable police notations.
Concerns supposedly raised by medical providers.
Then Rachel gave birth.
Forty-eight hours later, family services obtained emergency authority to place the newborn temporarily with relatives.
Except the “relatives” were Jonah’s cousins.
Within six weeks, Rachel disappeared.
“Disappeared?” Emma asked.
Teresa nodded.
“Her attorney said she stopped responding. Jonah claimed she left the state voluntarily.”
“And the baby?”
“Jonah eventually received full custody.”
“Where is Rachel?”
“No one knows.”
Emma sat in the shelter conference room with Teresa and Officer Torres.
Rain tapped against the window.
“So RB could mean Rachel Bell.”
“Possibly,” Teresa said.
“What does seventeen mean?”
“We never knew there was a code.”
Torres had already reopened portions of the old file.
David Weller’s name appeared in it.
He had been the assigned family services supervisor.
Caleb Grant’s name appeared once as a responding officer.
Emma felt rage rise through the fear.
“They’ve done this before.”
Torres lifted a hand.
“We cannot say that yet.”
“How many coincidences do you need?”
“I need evidence that survives court.”
Emma leaned back, gripping her belly.
The baby kicked.
Torres softened slightly.
“I believe someone was preparing to use the system against you. I’m trying to prove who.”
Emma looked at Teresa.
“Find Rachel.”
Teresa frowned.
“We’ve tried before.”
“Try again.”
Torres said, “We have.”
Emma looked at her.
“What did you find?”
“Rachel Bell’s Social Security number has not been used for employment in three years. No driver’s license renewal. No registered address. No recent medical activity we can access through legal channels.”
“That sounds like she’s dead.”
Teresa closed her eyes.
Torres replied, “Or living under another identity. Or outside the country.”
Emma looked at the rain.
“What about Jonah?”
“Still lives locally.”
“Does he know Matthew?”
“We’re checking.”
He did.
Within twenty-four hours, investigators found that Jonah Bell and Matthew Carter belonged to the same private business club.
They attended at least six events together.
David Weller had been photographed at two.
Caleb Grant at one.
When Torres showed Emma the photograph, she recognized the location immediately.
A charity golf fundraiser Matthew attended every spring.
Four men stood together near a clubhouse terrace.
Matthew.
Grant.
Weller.
Jonah Bell.
Emma stared at Jonah.
He was blond, clean-cut, mid-thirties.
Normal.
They all looked normal.
That was the frightening part.
“What are they doing?”
Torres pointed toward the edge of the picture.
A fifth man stood partly outside the frame.
Only half his face was visible.
Gray hair.
Dark glasses.
Expensive suit.
“We don’t know who this is.”
Emma stared.
Something about him felt familiar.
“Can you enlarge it?”
Torres slid over another image.
Emma studied the face.
Then she remembered.
“The hospital.”
“What?”
“I’ve seen him.”
“Where?”
“After my second miscarriage.”
Teresa sat forward.
“You’re sure?”
Emma closed her eyes.
The memory came slowly.
A private waiting room.
Matthew filling out paperwork.
Emma crying.
A man near the elevators.
Matthew shook his hand.
At the time, Emma assumed he was a colleague.
“What did Matthew say?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think.”
Emma pushed through the memory.
Matthew had stepped away.
The man said something.
Then Matthew returned and told Emma, He handles difficult family situations.
She had assumed insurance.
Now she was not sure.
“He said the man handled family situations.”
Torres wrote it down.
“Anything else?”
Emma looked again.
A detail surfaced.
A ring.
The gray-haired man wore a heavy gold signet ring.
Inside Matthew’s office, police had photographed an envelope sealed with a strange embossed symbol.
A bird inside a circle.
Emma pointed.
“That ring.”
Torres zoomed in.
The same bird.
The same circle.
“Where did you see that symbol?”
“In Matthew’s office photograph.”
Torres went silent.
She left the room.
Ten minutes later, she returned with a detective Emma had never met.
Detective Aaron Mills.
He carried a thick binder.
“We need you to look at something.”
He opened to photographs of documents seized from Matthew’s filing cabinet.
The symbol appeared repeatedly.
On invoices.
On consultant agreements.
On what looked like membership statements.
Mills said, “The organization calls itself Redbridge.”
Emma looked at Teresa.
RB.
Redbridge.
“Is it an adoption agency?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“We’re still determining that.”
Mills turned a page.
A payment record showed Matthew transferring twenty-five thousand dollars to Redbridge Family Solutions.
Three months after Emma became pregnant.
Emma whispered, “He paid them.”
Mills nodded.
“What for?”
“We don’t know.”
Then he turned another page.
A list of initials.
Dates.
Case numbers.
Seventeen entries.
RB-01.
RB-02.
RB-03.
All the way to RB-17.
Emma’s stomach tightened.
Rachel Bell might not be the meaning of RB.
She might have been Number 17.
Mills turned one final page.
There were additional handwritten numbers beneath the printed list.
RB-18.
RB-19.
RB-20.
May you like
Beside RB-20 was Emma’s full name.
And her baby’s due date.
