Chapter 13 - The House at Alder Ridge
Police found the first camera image eleven minutes later.
A silver SUV.
Stolen plates.
Florence behind the wheel.
Leo in the back seat.
Then nothing for forty-three minutes.
Traffic cameras lost the vehicle near Interstate 8.
Florence switched cars.
We knew because the SUV appeared abandoned beside a grocery store.
Leo’s booster seat remained inside.
No blood.
No sign of struggle.
A receipt lay in the cup holder.
Bottled water.
Apple juice.
Crackers.
A coloring book.
That mattered to Hannah.
It shouldn’t have.
But it did.
“She bought him snacks.”
I looked at her.
“She still took him.”
“I know.”
She pressed both palms to her eyes.
“I’m trying to understand whether he’s scared.”
“He is.”
The truth hurt her.
I kept going.
“But he knows you’re looking for him.”
She nodded.
The police issued an Amber Alert.
Florence’s photograph filled television screens.
My canceled wedding photograph became news within an hour.
A smiling bride.
A wealthy widower.
A missing child.
Corporate fraud.
The story had everything strangers loved.
I hated them for loving it.
Then Margaret remembered something.
“Alder Ridge.”
I turned.
“What?”
“The model house.”
Prescott Homes had built a luxury development called Alder Ridge four years earlier.
The final model home never sold because of a boundary dispute.
We used it occasionally for charity events.
Florence loved the place.
She once told me the kitchen was exactly what she would design if we ever built our own home.
I called the detective.
Police surrounded Alder Ridge within thirty minutes.
No obvious movement.
One vehicle in the garage.
Registered to a shell company connected to Northline.
They found Florence.
But not Leo.
She stepped onto the front porch alone.
Hands visible.
No weapon.
She looked nothing like the woman I almost married.
Jeans.
Gray sweater.
Hair tied back.
No makeup.
The police ordered her to the ground.
She complied.
I watched from three houses away beside Hannah.
Hannah tried to run forward.
An officer stopped her.
“Where is my son?”
Florence turned her head.
Even from that distance, I saw her look at us.
Then she said something.
The officer beside her repeated it over radio.
“She says the child isn’t here.”
Hannah nearly collapsed.
Police cleared the house.
No Leo.
On the kitchen counter, they found his coloring book.
Half a page colored blue.
A cup of apple juice.
And a note.
For Jonathan.
The detective would not give it to me until it had been photographed.
Then I read.
I DIDN’T TAKE HIM FROM RUTH.
MARTIN DID.
I only picked him up after.
ASK HIM WHERE HE TOOK LEO FIRST.
I read it again.
Then again.
Hannah shook her head.
“No.”
Martin was under police monitoring.
But not custody.
Not yet.
He had cooperated.
Turned over evidence.
His attorney was negotiating surrender conditions.
I called Sam.
No answer.
I called Martin.
No answer.
Police went to his house.
Empty.
His phone sat on the kitchen counter.
For thirty years, Martin had known every Prescott property.
Every cabin.
Every office.
Every construction site.
Every unfinished house.
Every place a person could disappear for a few hours.
Then Florence asked to speak to me.
The police refused initially.
Her attorney had not arrived.
She insisted she only needed to tell me one thing.
They let me stand fifteen feet away while officers surrounded us.
Her wrists were cuffed.
She looked at me.
“I didn’t hurt him.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“You shouldn’t believe me.”
The answer stopped me.
“Not anymore.”
Her eyes filled.
“But believe this.”
She looked toward Hannah.
“Martin is scared.”
“He should be.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t understand him scared.”
“What does that mean?”
“When he thinks he’s losing control, he creates a problem only he can solve.”
I stared at her.
“What problem?”
“You.”
“What?”
“He staged the medical concerns.”
“I know.”
“He leaked them to the board.”
“I know.”
“He planned to stop the leak after you signed.”
“So he could look like he saved me.”
“Yes.”
My mind moved.
Michael.
Caroline.
Dawson.
Every time Martin caused damage, he positioned himself nearby.
The fixer.
The loyal friend.
The man with the solution.
“Why take Leo?”
Florence swallowed.
“To make you need him.”
Hannah stepped forward despite the officer.
“Need him for what?”
Florence looked directly at her.
“To get Leo back.”
Hannah’s face twisted.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were with my son.”
“For nine minutes.”
“Where did Martin give him to you?”
“A parking structure.”
“Which one?”
“Mercer Medical Center.”
My chest tightened.
The hospital.
The medical fraud.
The sedatives.
Florence continued.
“Martin said he needed to move.”
“He told me to drive Leo to Alder Ridge.”
“Then he called thirty minutes later and told me to leave.”
“With Leo?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Her mouth trembled.
“Because Leo asked me if I was bad.”
No one spoke.
“I told him no.”
A tear moved down her cheek.
“He said bad people always say no.”
Despite everything, a broken laugh escaped me.
Leo.
Florence lowered her eyes.
“I stopped at a gas station.”
“What happened?”
“Martin was waiting.”
Hannah’s voice sharpened.
“You gave him back?”
“He had a gun.”
My body went cold.
“Martin owns no gun.”
Florence looked at me.
“Yes, he does.”
A memory surfaced.
Caroline hated firearms.
I had sold mine after Hannah was born.
Martin kept an old revolver at the cabin for years.
I thought he got rid of it.
“He took Leo.”
Florence continued.
“He told me to go to Alder Ridge and wait.”
“Why did you stay?”
“Because I thought he would tell me where Leo was.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
She looked at the officers.
“Then you arrived.”
The detective asked, “Where would Martin go?”
Florence shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
I did.
Not immediately.
Then I remembered something Martin said twenty years earlier.
If everything goes to hell, there is one place nobody will ever look.
At the time, we were laughing.
We had been fishing.
Drunk.
Young enough to believe disasters were funny when they belonged to other people.
I grabbed the detective’s arm.
“The quarry house.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“Old Prescott property.”
“Where?”
“North county.”
Hannah stared at me.
“We sold that.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“We sold the quarry.”
“The house stayed inside Bellweather’s holding company.”
Martin had kept it.
May you like
Of course he had.
Every thief kept a place to put what he didn’t want found.
