Chapter 7
Three days passed.
No sign of Nicole.
Jack searched everywhere.
Hotels.
Bus stations.
Airports.
Nicole’s friends.
Her family.
Nothing.
It was as if she’d vanished into thin air.
Sarah’s computer forensics expert, meanwhile, had made progress.
He’d found evidence that the emails and search history on Emily’s computer had been planted.
Timestamps that didn’t match.
IP addresses that traced back to Brandon’s office.
Files that had been modified after Emily’s phone was stolen.
“It’s not enough to prove beyond a doubt that Brandon did it,” Sarah said. “But it’s enough to create reasonable doubt about Voss’s evidence. And in a criminal case, that’s huge.”
But Voss was already one step ahead.
He filed a motion to suppress the forensic evidence, claiming it was “speculative” and “unreliable.”
The judge would hear the motion next week.
And then there was the money.
Five million dollars.
Jack had traced some of it.
A million dollars had been transferred to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands.
Another million had been used to buy property in Florida, under Nicole’s name.
The rest?
Gone.
Split between multiple accounts, shell companies, cash withdrawals.
Tracing it would take months.
Maybe years.
“Brandon planned this well,” Jack said. “He knew exactly what he was doing. If he’d gotten away with it, he’d be living in Florida with Nicole and Tyler, rich and free, and everyone would have thought Emily’s death was a tragic accident caused by postpartum depression.”
It made me sick to think about.
How close he’d come.
How close I’d come to losing both my daughter and my granddaughter.
That afternoon, there was a knock on the door.
I opened it.
A woman stood on my porch.
She was in her sixties, with gray hair and tired eyes.
She was holding a photograph.
“Mrs. Hale?” she said. “I’m Vanessa Bennett. Nicole’s mother.”
I stared at her.
This was the Vanessa Emily had heard Brandon and Nicole talking about.
The woman who’d turned Jack away just days earlier.
“May I come in?” she asked.
I hesitated.
Then I stepped aside.
She walked into the living room.
Emily was sitting on the couch, holding Grace.
When she saw Vanessa, she stiffened.
Vanessa looked at Emily.
Then she looked at Grace.
Tears filled her eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “For everything my daughter did. For what Brandon did to you. To this beautiful baby.”
She sat down, her hands trembling.
“Nicole called me last night,” she said. “From a payphone. She was crying. She said Brandon had taken her. That he’d picked her up and driven her to a cabin in the mountains. That he wouldn’t let her leave. That he was scared she’d talk.”
My heart raced.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“She wouldn’t say,” Vanessa said. “She was afraid Brandon would hear. But she said something else. She said Brandon has a plan. Something big. Something that’s going to happen before the trial. She said he’s not going to let Emily testify. That he’s going to make sure she can’t.”
Emily went pale.
“What does that mean?” she whispered.
Vanessa looked at us, her eyes full of fear.
“Nicole said Brandon has been talking to someone. A man. She didn’t know his name. But she heard Brandon say that ‘accidents happen.’ That ‘grieving husbands get sympathy.’ That ‘dead women can’t testify.’”
The room went cold.
Brandon was planning to kill Emily.
Again.
Sarah called the police immediately.
But without more information, there was little they could do.
They posted a patrol car outside the house.
They increased security at the hospital where Emily had follow-up appointments.
But they couldn’t be everywhere.
And Brandon knew it.
That night, I sat in the kitchen, going through everything we had.
The video.
The toxicology report.
The bank records.
The forensic evidence.
Vanessa’s statement.
It was all pieces of a puzzle.
But we were still missing the biggest piece.
Nicole.
If we could find her, if she could testify…
But Brandon had her.
And who knew what he was capable of.
Just then, my phone buzzed.
A text message.
From an unknown number.
It was a photo.
Nicole, tied to a chair, her face bruised.
Tyler, crying in a playpen beside her.
And a message.
“Stop digging, Margaret. Or the next photo will be of Emily and Grace.”
I dropped my phone.
It clattered on the table.
Emily came running in.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
I picked up the phone and showed her.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
I called Jack.
I called Sarah.
I called the police.
The detective assigned to the case came over immediately.
He looked at the photo.
“We’ll trace the number,” he said. “But these burner phones are hard to track. And if he’s in the mountains, the signal might be spotty.”
He turned to me.
“Mrs. Hale, I know this is frightening. But we will find him. And we will find Nicole and her baby. In the meantime, I’m going to post two officers outside your house. Twenty-four hours a day. No one gets in or out without being checked.”
But I knew it wasn’t enough.
Brandon was smart.
He was ruthless.
And he was desperate.
That evening, Jack came over.
He had a new lead.
“I talked to some of Brandon’s old business associates,” he said. “One of them mentioned that Brandon used to go hunting in the mountains north of here. He has a cabin there. Or at least, he used to. It’s on private land. Very remote. No cell service for miles.”
“Can you find it?” I asked.
Jack nodded.
“I’ve got the coordinates. The police are organizing a search team. But it’s a big area. And Brandon knows those woods. If he’s there, he’ll see them coming.”
He paused.
“I’m going up there tonight. Alone. I’ll scout the area. Find the cabin. Make sure Nicole and Tyler are there. Then I’ll call in the police.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Emily said.
Jack looked at her.
“Brandon is planning to hurt you, Mrs. Carter. To hurt your baby. I’m not going to let that happen. Not if I can stop it first.”
He stood up.
“I’ll call you when I know something.”
He left.
The hours that followed were the longest of my life.
Emily paced the living room.
Grace slept in her bassinet, blissfully unaware.
The two officers stood outside, their lights flashing softly in the dark.
I checked my phone every two minutes.
Nothing.
At three in the morning, my phone rang.
It was Jack.
His voice was low.
“Margaret, I found the cabin. Nicole and Tyler are there. Brandon is too. He’s armed. And he’s not alone. There’s another man with him. The one Nicole mentioned. I think he’s the one Brandon hired to… take care of Emily.”
My blood ran cold.
“Call the police,” I said.
“I already did,” Jack said. “They’re on their way. But it’ll take them at least an hour to get here. And I think Brandon is planning to leave. He’s packing the car. He’s got Nicole and Tyler with him. I don’t think he’s planning to come back.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
There was a pause.
“I’m going to make sure he doesn’t leave.”
“Jack, no—”
“I’ve got to go, Margaret. I’ll call you when it’s over.”
He hung up.
I sat there, holding the phone, my heart pounding.
Emily looked at me.
“Mom? What is it?”
I looked at my daughter.
At my granddaughter.
At the life Brandon was trying to destroy.
“Jack found them,” I said. “The police are on their way. It’s going to be okay.”
But I didn’t know if that was true.
Because somewhere in the mountains, Jack was facing down Brandon and a hired killer.
May you like
Alone.
And anything could happen.
