Chapter 5 - THE MAN WHO NEVER ABANDONED HERThe answer came from a dead man's bank account.
Maisie was moved to the same floor.
Police checked every visitor.
For twenty-four hours, none of us left.
Connor did not appear.
That somehow felt worse.
People like Connor didn't disappear because they were finished.
They disappeared because they were preparing.
Detective Ruiz returned the next morning with FBI Special Agent Marcus Hale, who explained that the photographs in the underground room had changed the investigation.
Three girls had been identified.
Ava Simmons vanished from Dayton in 2018.
Kaylee Morgan disappeared near Lexington in 2020.
Sophia Reyes went missing outside Indianapolis in 2022.
All three were still missing.
“We believe Connor may be connected,” Hale said.
Rachel shook her head.
“He wasn't alone.”
The room fell silent.
“Who helped him?” Ruiz asked.
Rachel looked toward Maisie.
“Can Daniel take her outside?”
I wheeled Maisie into the hall.
She demanded crackers from a vending machine.
While she ate them, I watched two federal agents enter Rachel's room.
Twenty minutes later, Ruiz emerged looking grim.
“We need to search the house again.”
“I want to go.”
“No.”
“There’s something inside.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“What?”
I remembered Rachel's warning.
I hated lying.
But I hated the idea of Connor's network finding the key more.
“Maisie's favorite toy.”
Ruiz sighed.
“What does it look like?”
“Rabbit.”
She called the evidence team.
Thirty minutes later, they found no rabbit.
Then Maisie said something.
“Bunny sleeps in the wall.”
Ruiz crouched.
“What wall, sweetheart?”
“Mommy's room.”
We returned to Elm Street under police escort.
The neighborhood looked different.
Crime-scene tape covered the property.
News vans lined the curb.
A reporter shouted my name.
I ignored everyone.
Inside, the house smelled like dust and blood.
The air conditioning had been restored, but the memory of the heat remained.
Maisie refused to enter.
So I stayed outside while officers searched.
An hour later, Ruiz walked onto the porch holding an evidence bag.
Inside was a dirty white stuffed rabbit.
One seam had been cut open.
Empty.
“The key is gone,” I whispered.
Ruiz stared at me.
“What key?”
I had no choice.
I told her.
She wasn't happy.
“You withheld evidence.”
“I protected my sister.”
“You made that decision without knowing what the key opened.”
“I still don't.”
Ruiz turned toward the house.
“Apparently someone else does.”
The rabbit had been hidden behind a removable section of baseboard.
Whoever took the key had entered after the police secured the scene.
Which meant either someone had breached the perimeter…
Or someone inside the investigation was helping Connor.
That night, Rachel finally explained what Michael had told her.
He had worked as an electrician for Blue Harbor Residential Holdings.
He noticed strange renovations in several properties.
Rooms with reinforced doors.
Cameras where no cameras should be.
Interior locks designed to keep people inside.
Michael began documenting everything.
Then he discovered payments from Blue Harbor to a private security company called Northgate Protective Services.
The company's owner was a former sheriff's deputy named Walter Briggs.
“Michael said Briggs protected Connor,” Rachel whispered.
“Protected him from what?”
“Questions.”
Michael planned to take the evidence to federal authorities.
Before he could, he vanished.
But not before giving Rachel the key.
“He said if anything happened to him, it opened the truth.”
I contacted Ruiz.
She told me Northgate had contracts with hospitals, office buildings, private estates—
And police evidence facilities.
That night, somebody attempted to enter Rachel's hospital room using an employee badge.
Security stopped him.
He ran.
Surveillance cameras captured only a partial face.
But Rachel recognized him immediately.
“Walter Briggs.”
By sunrise, the FBI raided Northgate headquarters.
Briggs was gone.
His office had been emptied.
Hard drives removed.
Documents burned.
But investigators found one thing in his desk.
A photograph.
Taken six days earlier.
It showed me leaving work.
Another showed my apartment building.
Another showed my truck.
Connor had been watching me before I ever drove down Elm Street.
I wasn't an accidental witness.
I had been guided there.
May you like
Someone wanted me to find Rachel.
And whoever it was had risked everything to make sure I did.
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