Chapter 8 - Safe House
They moved before dawn.
This time even Maya knew they were hiding.
Two unmarked police vehicles escorted them to a secure residence outside Phoenix.
Leo hated it immediately.
Too many locks.
Too many cameras.
Too many unfamiliar adults.
He stood in the center of the bedroom and whispered, “I don’t want another place I can’t leave.”
David crouched.
“You can leave this one.”
“Right now?”
“If you want to walk outside, I’ll walk with you.”
Leo studied his face.
Then walked toward the door.
David opened it.
They stepped onto the patio.
Morning sunlight touched Leo’s face.
He shut his eyes.
For almost a minute, nobody spoke.
David realized his son had spent most of the previous year measuring freedom in doors.
Locked.
Unlocked.
Open.
Closed.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Grandpa bad?”
David looked across the small yard.
There were questions parents should be able to answer simply.
This was not one.
“Grandpa did bad things.”
“Is that different?”
David looked at him.
“Yes.”
“And no.”
Leo thought about that.
“Did he want me dead?”
The question hit David so hard he almost failed to hide it.
“I don’t know exactly what he wanted.”
“But I know he should have protected you.”
“He didn’t.”
“That was wrong.”
Leo nodded.
“He cried at the lodge.”
“Grandpa?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The first night.”
David sat beside him.
“What happened?”
“Uncle Mark put me in a room.”
“Aunt Elena came later.”
“Grandpa stood outside.”
“I heard them arguing.”
“About what?”
“Me.”
Leo looked down.
“Grandpa said, ‘He’s David’s boy.’”
“Mark said, ‘Then make a decision.’”
David’s throat tightened.
“What decision?”
“I don’t know.”
Leo rubbed his thumb across his palm.
“Then Aunt Elena said she would take me.”
“Grandpa told her, ‘If you do this, you own it.’”
David stared.
Thomas had not ordered Leo killed.
At least not then.
He had done something almost equally unforgivable.
He had allowed his frightened daughter to take a kidnapped child because returning the boy would expose a dead woman in a well.
Sarah came outside.
“Quinn called.”
David stood.
“What happened?”
“They found Mark’s Expedition.”
“Where?”
“Prescott National Forest.”
Empty.
The vehicle had been wiped.
But investigators found mud on the tires containing mineral traces consistent with a limited area farther north.
Search teams began working.
Meanwhile forensic analysts continued examining Rachel’s drive.
The financial fraud was worse than anyone first understood.
Elena had stolen nearly four million dollars.
Mark had received more than six hundred thousand over two years.
Thomas had authorized several unusual payments after Rachel disappeared.
Not direct theft.
Cleanup money.
David stared at the transactions.
“You paid the people who destroyed records.”
Thomas sat across from him in an attorney’s office two days later.
He had not yet been charged with Rachel’s death.
But he was under investigation for obstruction, conspiracy, evidence tampering, and multiple financial offenses.
“You should not be speaking to me,” Thomas’s attorney warned.
Thomas ignored him.
“I authorized payments.”
“To cover up my sister’s crimes.”
“Yes.”
“To hide Rachel’s body?”
Thomas looked down.
“Yes.”
David felt no satisfaction.
Only exhaustion.
“Why?”
Thomas took a long time to answer.
“Because I built my entire identity around the belief that I could control consequences.”
David stared.
Thomas continued.
“When Elena called me, I thought one decision could contain the disaster.”
“Then another decision was needed.”
“Then another.”
“By the time Leo disappeared, the truth would have destroyed the company, your sister, Mark, and me.”
“So you destroyed my family instead.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
David had expected denial.
Excuses.
Anger.
The admission was somehow worse.
“Did you pay Mark to stage Leo’s death?”
Thomas opened his eyes.
“I told him the searches could not continue forever.”
“That is not an answer.”
“He proposed creating evidence.”
“And?”
“I told him I would think about it.”
“Elena says you paid him.”
“I paid Mark constantly.”
“I don’t know which payment she means.”
“Did you tell him no?”
Thomas said nothing.
David stood.
“That’s what I thought.”
Thomas suddenly said, “Mark is more dangerous than Elena understands.”
David turned.
“What does he want?”
“Control.”
“Money.”
“Survival.”
“He has spent twenty years collecting people’s worst moments.”
“Mine included.”
“What does he have on you?”
Thomas smiled without humor.
“Enough.”
“Where would he go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You employed him for nineteen years.”
“You know.”
Thomas looked at his attorney.
Then at David.
“There’s an old mining property near Jerome.”
“Mark handled security there when we considered buying it.”
“Underground tunnels.”
“Private access.”
David immediately called Quinn.
Police searched the location that afternoon.
They found no Mark.
But they did find his equipment.
Radios.
Burner phones.
Fake license plates.
And a locked steel case.
Inside was a bloodstained child’s backpack.
Leo’s name was written across the tag.
David had seen that backpack a thousand times.
It had disappeared with him.
Beside it were sealed bags containing cut hair.
Leo’s hair.
A small vial of blood.
And printed instructions describing a remote canyon where the evidence should be planted.
Mark had prepared everything necessary to manufacture Leo’s death.
Quinn stared into the case.
“Elena may have been telling the truth.”
David felt numb.
“He was going to end the search.”
“Probably.”
A technician lifted another folder.
Inside were photographs of several locations.
The final image showed a small private airstrip.
A plane sat beside a hangar.
On the back, Mark had written a date.
Tomorrow.
Quinn immediately contacted aviation authorities.
The plane was registered to a Nevada corporation.
A flight plan had not been filed.
Fuel records showed the tanks had been filled that morning.
David stared at the picture.
“He’s leaving.”
Quinn nodded.
“Maybe.”
“Or he wants us to think he is.”
Her phone buzzed.
She checked the message.
Then handed David a photograph.
It had just been sent to his phone from an unknown number.
Sarah and Maya were visible through the kitchen window of the safe house.
Taken from outside.
Underneath was a message.
BRING RACHEL’S DRIVE.
May you like
COME ALONE.
OR THIS TIME YOU WILL ONLY FIND A SHOE.
