Chapter 8 - UNDER THE STATIONThe old police headquarters had been renovated four times.
He had commendations.
Photographs with governors.
Awards for community service.
A framed article in the department lobby praising him for dismantling a trafficking ring.
And a black snake tattoo wrapping around his right forearm.
Detective Ortiz had worked for him for eleven years.
“He hired me into Major Crimes,” she said.
We were standing in a hospital supply room because she no longer trusted her own office.
“Could Caleb be mistaken?”
“About a tattoo?”
“He’s five.”
“He remembered the red bird, the storage number and the key.”
I didn’t argue.
Ortiz called Internal Affairs from a borrowed phone.
Within an hour, a quiet parallel investigation began.
Vance continued acting normally.
He requested updates.
Asked whether Caleb remembered anything useful.
Asked whether Rachel had contacted police.
Asked whether the children were still at Desert Valley Hospital.
Ortiz lied.
For the first time in her career, she deliberately misled her commanding officer.
She told him the children were being transferred to a state facility in Tucson.
In reality, Caleb and Mia were moved to a secure pediatric wing at a different hospital fifteen miles away.
Within forty minutes, an unmarked SUV was spotted near the highway route to Tucson.
It belonged to a shell company tied to Wade Kessler.
The leak was real.
Vance had passed on the false information.
Internal Affairs obtained emergency authorization to monitor him.
His phone activity exposed connections going back years.
Calls to Wade.
Calls to Trevor.
Calls to Hollis’s legal fixer.
Payments moved through consulting companies controlled by Vance’s brother-in-law.
The case widened faster than anyone expected.
But Rachel remained missing.
Then Cole Avery called Ortiz directly.
“I want immunity.”
“You’re not in a position to bargain.”
“You want Rachel?”
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“Put her on.”
“I can’t.”
“Then you have nothing.”
Cole breathed heavily.
“Rachel doesn’t trust you.”
“She contacted Daniel.”
“She was forced.”
“By Hollis?”
“No.”
“Trevor?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“Me.”
Ortiz’s eyes narrowed.
“You made her scream?”
“She wasn’t screaming because I hurt her.”
“What happened?”
“Someone found us.”
Ortiz put the call on speaker.
I listened.
Cole explained.
Rachel had escaped Wade near the rail warehouse by cutting her wrist restraints against exposed metal.
She ran through industrial yards until she reached a gas station and called the one person she believed Trevor didn’t know about—Cole Avery.
They had been childhood friends.
Nothing romantic.
Just someone outside Rachel’s adult life.
Cole picked her up.
They went to the lake cabin.
Then Rachel discovered the storage unit had been compromised.
She panicked.
She believed the police were infiltrated.
Correctly, as it turned out.
“Why call Daniel?” Ortiz asked.
“Because Rachel saw the rescue video online.”
My stomach twisted.
“She knew he saved Caleb.”
“She believed if there was one person Caleb might trust, it was him.”
“So why the fake hostage call?”
“We needed Hollis and Trevor to think Rachel had been taken.”
I stared at the phone.
“You used me.”
Cole said, “Yes.”
“You let me think she was being tortured.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I was trying to keep her alive.”
“Where is she now?”
Silence.
Then another voice joined the call.
Rachel.
“I’m here.”
I gripped the table.
“Rachel?”
“I’m sorry, Daniel.”
“You’re alive.”
“Yes.”
“Caleb thinks you’re dead.”
She began crying.
That ended my anger.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t say.”
“Your kids are safe.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Cole has someone inside the hospital.”
Ortiz and I exchanged a glance.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. A nurse who owes him a favor.”
“That is not helping the trust situation,” Ortiz said.
Rachel took a breath.
“I need proof Vance is involved.”
“We have it.”
“Enough to arrest him?”
“Soon.”
“Soon isn’t enough.”
“Rachel, come in.”
“No.”
“Your children need you.”
“That’s why I can’t.”
I understood.
Every time Rachel had trusted a system, Trevor seemed to know.
Protective order.
Police reports.
Shelter locations.
Her mother’s house.
Somebody had always leaked something.
“How do we prove you can trust us?” I asked.
Rachel was silent.
Then she said, “Bring Caleb’s dinosaur.”
“What?”
“His stuffed dinosaur from the red backpack.”
“It’s evidence.”
“I hid something inside it.”
Ortiz went still.
“What?”
“A memory card.”
“Containing?”
“Video.”
“Of what?”
Rachel’s voice dropped.
“Evan Pike’s murder.”
Everyone in the room stopped breathing.
Rachel had witnessed Trevor and another man interrogating the missing accountant.
She had hidden her phone outside a partially open office door and recorded the end.
Trevor struck Evan.
Wade restrained him.
But according to Rachel, neither delivered the fatal blow.
A third man did.
Captain Vance.
The police officer responsible for investigating Evan Pike’s disappearance had participated in his death.
The memory card had been hidden inside Caleb’s dinosaur because Rachel believed no adult would bother examining a child’s toy.
But when police inventoried the red backpack, the dinosaur wasn’t there.
I remembered seeing it.
Green fabric.
Yellow belly.
One missing eye.
It had absolutely been in the backpack.
“Who logged the evidence?” Ortiz asked.
We checked.
Officer Raymond Hill.
A patrol officer working directly beneath Captain Vance.
Ortiz called the evidence room.
No dinosaur had ever been entered.
Hill had removed it first.
“We need to find him,” Ortiz said.
Too late.
A patrol unit found Officer Hill’s car thirty minutes later behind an abandoned shopping center.
Driver’s door open.
Phone smashed.
Blood on the steering wheel.
No Hill.
No dinosaur.
Then a text appeared on Ortiz’s borrowed phone.
A photograph of the green dinosaur lying on concrete.
Beside it was Officer Hill.
Alive.
Kneeling.
Hands tied.
The message underneath read:
BRING RACHEL TO ME, OR THE COP DIES.
Rachel’s voice broke over the speaker.
“That’s Vance.”
Ortiz stared at the photograph.
“How do you know?”
“The floor.”
“What about it?”
“I’ve seen it before.”
“Where?”
May you like
Rachel swallowed.
“In the basement beneath police headquarters.”
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