Chapter 8 - The Woman Who Had Already DiedRebecca Miles had been declared missing four years earlier.
Her husband had told police that she'd taken money, left her wedding ring behind, and disappeared after a series of emotional difficulties.
The official investigation found no proof of foul play.
The case gradually went cold.
Yet the woman on the phone was alive.
Detective Ortiz took her call into a separate room. I stayed with Emily, who had listened to enough of the conversation to understand that something extraordinary was happening.
"Is Rebecca real?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Is she the woman in the photograph?"
"I think so."
Emily stared at Bluebird.
"Then why did Jason say she was dead?"
I didn't know how to answer.
An hour later, Ortiz returned.
Rebecca had spent the last four years living under another name. She had escaped Jason after a violent incident and believed that reporting him would put her younger sister at risk. Jason knew where her family lived and had threatened to harm them if she went to the police.
She fled the state, changed her name, and kept her location secret.
She had never told investigators the full story because she believed Jason had connections inside the local department.
Until Sarah contacted her six months earlier.
Sarah had found Rebecca's old wedding ring among Jason's belongings. She recognized the name engraved inside and began asking questions.
Jason initially told her Rebecca had abandoned him.
Then he ordered Sarah to stop asking.
She didn't.
According to Rebecca, Jason had spent years creating false stories about the people he hurt. He collected their private photographs, financial records, messages, and personal documents, then used pieces of those records to intimidate anyone who threatened him.
Deputy Bell had helped him bury complaints.
But Bell wasn't the only person who knew.
Rebecca had heard Jason speak with a man who worked at the county records office. Their conversation concerned the official report of her disappearance, including a document that had been altered after it was submitted.
Ortiz requested a secure meeting with Rebecca under state protection.
Before ending the call, Rebecca gave her one crucial detail.
"The orchard isn't his real hiding place," she said. "It's where he takes people when he wants them to think they can escape."
"Where does he take them after that?"
"The boathouse."
I looked at the photograph again.
The red door behind the trees.
Rebecca continued.
"There's a service tunnel beneath the old building. It runs from the cellar to a concrete drainage channel along the lake. My husband used it to move equipment without being seen from the road."
"Could Sarah be there?"
"I don't know."
Then Rebecca went quiet.
"There's something else."
Ortiz waited.
"Jason never worked alone. There was someone who helped him after I disappeared. Someone who knew how to make paperwork vanish, who could turn a missing-person report into an administrative error."
"Do you know the man's name?"
"I heard Jason call him Daniel."
Ortiz looked toward me.
"Daniel who?"
Rebecca answered.
"Daniel Bell."
The deputy.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Rebecca added, almost in a whisper, "I don't think he was only helping Jason cover things up. I think he was there the night Jason tried to kill me."
A new call came through on Ortiz's phone. An investigator had located the vehicle from the recording.
It had been seen near the abandoned orchard less than an hour earlier.
And the driver was Jason.
Ortiz immediately requested a coordinated search. State police prepared to surround the property, while detectives tracked the vehicle toward the lake.
But there was one problem.
Jason had seen the officers coming.
A traffic camera caught his car turning onto a narrow access road just before the search perimeter was established.
The road led directly to the boathouse.
Ortiz grabbed her jacket.
I stood.
"I'm coming with you."
"No."
"Sarah is my daughter's mother."
"And if Jason sees you, he may use you against her."
"Then I'll be careful."
Ortiz looked at Emily, then at me.
Finally, she said, "You stay behind the perimeter. You do not enter that building, no matter what you hear."
I promised.
I meant it when I said it.
But neither of us knew that Jason had already arranged for someone to call my phone.
At 4:26 p.m., it rang.
An unfamiliar voice said, "Michael, if you want your daughter to see her mother again, come alone."
I heard Sarah crying in the background.
Then Jason spoke.
May you like
"Bring Bluebird."
The line went dead.
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