Chapter 5

I shut the computer.

Evelyn reached beneath a shelf and pulled out an old baseball bat.

Under different circumstances, I might have smiled.

I did not.

We climbed the stairs quietly.

The hallway was dark.

Sophie slept in the guest room.

At least I prayed she did.

A floorboard creaked near the kitchen.

I stepped forward.

A shadow moved.

“Stop.”

The figure froze.

Evelyn switched on the light.

Officer Lena Ortiz stood near the back door.

Her hands were raised.

“Don’t swing.”

I stared at her.

“How did you get in?”

“The door was unlocked.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Then someone else opened it.”

Nobody spoke.

Ortiz slowly removed her badge and placed it on the table.

“I need you to listen.”

“Why should I?”

“Because Whitaker is missing.”

“What?”

“He left Internal Affairs forty minutes ago. He was supposed to surrender his service weapon and phone. He never arrived.”

Evelyn lowered the bat slightly.

Ortiz continued.

“His police vehicle was found abandoned near the river.”

“Was he taken?”

“We don’t know.”

“Why are you here?”

“Because before he disappeared, he called me.”

She took out her phone.

“He said one sentence.”

“What sentence?”

Ortiz looked at me.

“Tell Bell his wife was right about the blue houses.”

I frowned.

“What blue houses?”

Evelyn went still.

“You know.”

She returned downstairs and brought up one of Naomi’s maps.

Several properties were circled in blue ink.

“What are they?”

Ortiz looked closer.

Her face changed.

“Police families.”

“What?”

“These houses belong to officers. Retired officers. Dispatchers. Department employees.”

The pattern became visible.

The targeted homes were not only minority homes.

Several were owned by people connected to law enforcement.

All had sold through shell companies.

I looked at Ortiz.

“Why would Whitaker know about Naomi’s investigation?”

She swallowed.

“Because I think he was part of it.”

Evelyn tightened her grip on the bat.

Ortiz raised a hand.

“Not the way you think.”

She explained.

Three months earlier, Ortiz had responded to a domestic-disturbance call at a house occupied by an eighty-year-old widow.

There was no disturbance.

The woman lived alone.

A week later, another officer responded to a drug complaint at the same address.

False.

Then code enforcement visited.

Then an insurance inspection.

Within two months, the woman sold her house for sixty percent of its value.

Buyer: a shell company.

Ortiz started asking questions.

Whitaker warned her to stop.

She assumed he was protecting someone.

Then, two weeks earlier, Whitaker secretly gave her a list of questionable emergency calls.

“Why?”

“He said he’d been doing something he couldn’t get out of.”

My stomach tightened.

“What?”

“He admitted he had responded to calls he knew were probably false.”

“Why?”

“Money.”

The word landed hard.

“He was paid to make contact,” Ortiz said. “Nothing violent. Just create official records. Suspicious activity. Welfare concerns. Domestic tension. Anything that could later be used by insurers, landlords, banks, custody lawyers.”

“Who paid him?”

“He never told me.”

“Did he create the call this morning?”

“I think someone used his identity because they knew he would be dispatched.”

“To make him look responsible.”

“Yes.”

“So the caller wanted two things. Me distracted and Whitaker blamed.”

Ortiz nodded.

“That’s what I think.”

“Then who knew Whitaker was involved?”

Her answer came slowly.

“Someone above him.”

The room went silent.

Evelyn looked toward me.

Briggs.

I knew what she was thinking.

I refused to say it.

Then Ortiz noticed another file.

A scanned real-estate document.

She leaned closer.

“What is that?”

I opened it.

It showed one of the shell companies buying a property from Hollis Development six years earlier.

At the bottom was an authorization signature.

Not Briggs.

A woman.

Dr. Margaret Hollis.

I looked at Evelyn.

“The developer’s owner?”

“No,” she said.

“Then who?”

Ortiz pulled out her phone.

A search took seconds.

She turned the screen toward us.

Dr. Margaret Hollis.

Former county behavioral health director.

Public safety consultant.

Widow.

One photograph appeared.

Sophie’s school bus driver went white.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

Evelyn pointed at the photograph.

I stared.

I recognized the woman.

But not from anywhere official.

She had been at Naomi’s funeral.

Standing behind Chief Briggs.

I remembered because she had held Sophie’s hand while I spoke with the minister.

I had assumed she was a family friend.

Ortiz zoomed in.

The caption identified her.

Dr. Margaret Briggs.

Chief Raymond Briggs’s wife.

Hollis was her maiden name.