Chapter 8
That was when the story became terrifying again.
Thomas Vale was dead.
Margaret Briggs was under investigation.
Chief Briggs had been secretly documenting the scheme.
Whitaker had disappeared.
Evelyn had confessed to hiding the truth about Naomi’s death.
But none of them could explain the call made at 7:12 that morning.
Someone had activated Walter Harris’s old dispatch exploit.
Someone had used Whitaker’s identity.
Someone had spoofed Daniel Pike’s telephone number.
Someone had known I would be at the bus stop.
And someone had entered my home while I was being detained.
The stolen hard drive was still missing.
That evening, Chief Briggs came to the station voluntarily.
He looked ten years older.
I met him in an interview room with Ortiz and two state investigators.
He did not try to hug me.
Good.
I might have hit him.
“You knew Naomi’s death was staged.”
Briggs stared at the table.
“I suspected it.”
“You paid Whitaker to keep quiet.”
“I paid him because Vale had already compromised him. I wanted him close.”
“You could have told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Naomi asked me not to.”
I almost laughed.
“My dead wife asked you to lie to me?”
“She asked me to protect Sophie.”
“By letting me believe she died in an accident?”
His eyes filled.
“Yes.”
I stood.
Ortiz put a hand on my shoulder.
Briggs continued.
“I failed Naomi. I knew Margaret was involved with Hollis acquisitions. I thought it was financial corruption. I did not understand Vale was using the emergency system until after Naomi died.”
“Your wife participated.”
“Yes.”
“Did she know people could get hurt?”
“At first, she told herself they were only creating administrative pressure.”
“Do you hear how insane that sounds?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“State police custody.”
“Where is Whitaker?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who made this morning’s call?”
“I don’t know.”
I leaned across the table.
“You knew where I was at Evelyn’s.”
His face tightened.
“I received an anonymous message.”
“What message?”
He handed his phone to Ortiz.
A text from a blocked internet number.
BELL FOUND NAOMI’S BACKUP. HARRIS HOUSE.
“That’s why you came?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That Vale had someone else.”
“Who?”
Briggs looked at me.
“Someone Naomi never found.”
At 9:40 that night, police found Whitaker.
Alive.
Barely.
He had been locked inside an abandoned maintenance shed near the river.
No major injuries.
Drugged.
His phone and wallet were gone.
When he regained consciousness, he remembered only one thing clearly.
A voice.
Female.
He had met her before.
But he could not place it.
That detail changed the investigation.
Margaret Briggs?
In custody before Whitaker disappeared.
Evelyn?
Driving a school bus when he vanished.
Someone else.
We returned to my house after midnight.
State police searched everything again.
This time, one investigator noticed something.
The burglar had taken Naomi’s hard drive.
But they had also opened Sophie’s school drawer.
Nothing had been removed.
At least nothing I noticed.
“Why search here?” the investigator asked.
I looked at the drawer.
School schedules.
Permission slips.
Bus information.
Then I saw an old class photograph.
Behind it was a handwritten emergency contact card.
Sophie Bell.
Father: Marcus Bell.
Emergency Contact 2:
Evelyn Harris.
I stared at it.
Then something clicked.
“Who knew Sophie’s bus schedule?”
Ortiz answered.
“Anyone at the school.”
“Who knew I walked her every morning?”
“Neighbors. Bus staff. Parents.”
“Who knew Whitaker was likely to respond to Maple Ridge?”
“Dispatch.”
That word hung between us.
Dispatch.
Not police.
Not neighbors.
The caller needed access to the old emergency routing system.
Who had access?
Vale.
Walter Harris.
Perhaps Briggs.
Perhaps Margaret.
But Walter was dead.
Vale was dead.
And then I remembered something.
The dispatcher that morning.
The voice that told Whitaker:
Caller has been identified.
Clear the location immediately.
Why had dispatch recognized the caller so quickly?
Unless the caller had not merely been traced.
Unless someone in dispatch already knew what to look for.
I turned toward Ortiz.
“Who was working emergency communications this morning?”
She called Sergeant Reed.
Ten minutes later, we had the roster.
Seven dispatchers.
One shift supervisor.
I recognized the supervisor’s surname.
Harris.
I stared.
“Evelyn has children?”
Ortiz searched.
One daughter.
Rebecca Harris Lane.
Age forty-six.
County Emergency Communications supervisor.
Worked there twenty-two years.
Walter Harris’s daughter.
Evelyn’s daughter.
And according to the roster—
Rebecca had been sitting at the dispatch console that morning.