Chapter 10 - TRAPPED
“Everyone stay calm.”
Elliot used his phone flashlight.
The door wouldn’t open.
Someone had locked it from outside.
Maya started crying.
Lila held her hand.
Richard kicked the door.
Nothing.
Then smoke began entering through the ventilation duct.
“They’re setting another fire,” Elliot said.
He called 911.
No signal.
The basement walls blocked reception.
Richard pointed toward the old emergency exit.
“It’s behind those shelves.”
They pushed equipment aside.
A metal door appeared.
Locked.
Elliot searched the room.
“Anything heavy.”
Lila grabbed a fire extinguisher.
Elliot struck the lock.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Smoke thickened.
Maya coughed.
Richard helped.
The lock bent.
Finally, the door opened.
Cold air rushed in.
They climbed through a narrow service tunnel.
Behind them, flames entered the surveillance room.
They emerged near the athletic field.
Police saw them.
Fire crews rushed toward the building.
Lila collapsed into Elliot’s arms.
He held her so tightly she complained she couldn’t breathe.
“Good.”
He almost cried.
“Then I know you’re here.”
Richard handed the flash drive to investigators.
The recording was authenticated that night.
Caroline’s voice was clear.
“He keeps following Sarah too closely.”
Another voice responded.
“She’s scared.”
Caroline said,
“Good.”
Elliot listened in silence.
The unidentified man asked,
“What if she goes to Mercer?”
Caroline replied,
“She won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she thinks she can fix everything herself.”
Then came the sentence that changed the investigation.
“If she keeps pushing, make sure she gets the message before she reaches him.”
There was no explicit order to kill Sarah.
But Caroline had authorized intimidation.
Investigators traced the second voice.
It belonged to a private investigator named Victor Lane.
Victor had died two years earlier.
His records still existed.
Cole found them.
One invoice dated the week Sarah died.
SURVEILLANCE — S. REED.
Another entry:
VEHICLE CONTACT.
Elliot stared at those two words.
“What does vehicle contact mean?”
Cole shook his head.
“We don’t know.”
Then they found a repair receipt from Victor Lane’s black SUV.
Front bumper damage.
Date: the morning after Sarah’s crash.
Elliot sat in silence.
For six years, he had mourned an accident.
Now he was facing the possibility that his wife had been run off the road.
Police moved to arrest Caroline.
But she had disappeared.
Her house was empty.
Her car was found at a private airfield.
Peyton was gone too.
Richard stared at the empty house.
“She took our daughter.”
Elliot looked at him.
“Where would she go?”
Richard hesitated.
Then his face changed.
“She has a cabin.”
“Where?”
“Vermont.”
Elliot’s phone rang.
A video message arrived.
Caroline appeared on screen.
Peyton sat behind her, crying.
Caroline looked directly into the camera.
“You wanted the truth, Elliot?”
She smiled.
May you like
“Come get it.”
Then she gave him an address.
