Chapter 5 - My Sister Disappears
Claire did not answer her phone.
I called nine times while Detective Ortega drove toward her apartment.
Each call went directly to voicemail.
“She may have turned it off,” Wyatt said.
“She never turns it off. She works nights at a veterinary clinic. She always keeps it on in case they call.”
Ortega spoke into his radio, requesting officers at Claire’s building.
I sat in the rear seat with both hands over my stomach. Every pothole sent pain through my abdomen, but I refused to return to the hospital.
The flash drive rested inside an evidence bag in Wyatt’s coat.
Ortega had uploaded encrypted copies to a federal tip portal, but he did not trust the system enough to surrender the original.
“David sent that photograph to make you panic,” he said.
“It worked.”
“That doesn’t mean he took her.”
“You didn’t see him at home.”
Ortega glanced at me through the rearview mirror.
“What else has he done?”
The question opened a door I had kept locked inside myself.
I told him about the first slap, delivered three months after our wedding because I laughed too loudly at dinner.
I told him how David apologized the next morning and blamed stress.
I told him about the time he broke two of my fingers, then drove me to urgent care and answered every question for me.
I told him how he controlled my medication, monitored my phone, and installed cameras he claimed were part of the home security system.
I told him he had once held my head beneath bathwater until I stopped resisting.
Wyatt’s hands clenched in his lap.
Ortega’s face remained professional, but his voice changed.
“How long ago was that?”
“Five months.”
“While you were pregnant?”
“Yes.”
The car went silent.
Claire’s apartment building appeared ahead.
Two patrol cars were already parked outside.
Her front door stood open.
I tried to get out before the car fully stopped.
Wyatt caught my arm.
“Let Ortega go first.”
“That’s my sister.”
“And David wants you to rush in without thinking.”
I hated that he was right.
Ortega entered with two officers.
We waited in the hallway for what felt like hours, though only minutes passed.
Finally, he returned.
“The apartment is empty.”
“Was there a struggle?”
“No obvious signs.”
My phone rang.
Claire’s number.
I answered immediately.
“Claire?”
A man laughed softly.
Not David.
“Mrs. Mercer,” he said, “your sister is safe for the moment.”
“Let me speak to her.”
A muffled sound came through the line.
Then Claire’s voice.
“Anna, don’t give them anything!”
The sound of a slap followed.
I screamed her name.
The man returned.
“Your husband would like to exchange one family member for another family possession.”
“What does he want?”
“The original drive and every document removed from Box 317.”
“Where?”
“You will receive instructions.”
The call ended.
Ortega took my phone and checked the number.
“Burner phone.”
“I’m giving him the drive.”
“No,” Wyatt said.
I turned on him.
“That is my sister.”
“And if you give David the evidence, he kills both of you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know men like him.”
“You knew him for five minutes in a store.”
Wyatt’s face hardened.
“My sister trusted him for two years. I have spent six more studying every report, every account, and every person connected to her death. David doesn’t release threats. He removes them.”
My anger collapsed into fear.
“What am I supposed to do?”
Ortega crouched in front of me.
“We create a copy that looks original. We track the exchange. We get Claire out.”
“You said the police are compromised.”
“Some are. Not all.”
“Who do you trust?”
He hesitated.
“One federal agent.”
The agent’s name was Mara Ellis.
Ortega contacted her through a private number. She agreed to meet us at an abandoned fire station on the edge of the city.
She arrived alone.
Mara was in her early forties, with cropped dark hair and an expression that seemed to measure every person in the room.
She examined the documents and listened to Rachel’s recording.
“I have been investigating Mercer Development for eighteen months,” she said. “Fraud, bribery, money laundering. Every time we got close, a witness recanted or disappeared.”
“Did you know about Rachel?” Wyatt asked.
“I suspected her accident was connected. I couldn’t prove it.”
“And my mother?”
Mara looked at me.
“We reopened the file six months ago after an informant mentioned Evelyn Brooks.”
“Who was the informant?”
She did not answer immediately.
“Someone inside David’s company.”
“Are they still alive?”
“We don’t know.”
She removed a small device from her bag.
“We can clone the drive and place a tracker inside the casing. But the exchange must be controlled.”
“I’m going.”
“No,” Mara said.
“David asked for me.”
“David wants you because he can control you.”
“He thinks he can.”
Her eyes studied mine.
“You are eight months pregnant and recently assaulted. Courage will not make you bulletproof.”
“Neither will hiding.”
Wyatt stepped beside me.
“She won’t go alone.”
Mara shook her head.
“You are emotionally compromised.”
“So is everyone in this room.”
Ortega almost smiled.
Agent Ellis did not.
My phone received a new message.
MIDNIGHT. OLD RIVER MILL. COME ALONE.
A photograph appeared beneath it.
Claire sat tied to a chair, blood on her lower lip.
Behind her stood David.
He was smiling.
Wyatt looked closely at the image.
“That’s not the river mill.”
“How do you know?”
“The windows are wrong. The old mill has arched windows. Those are rectangular.”
Mara enlarged the photograph.
“There’s a number painted on the wall behind Claire.”
Ortega read it.
“Building Twelve.”
Wyatt’s gaze sharpened.
“Mercer Development owns an abandoned warehouse complex near the freight yards.”
David expected us to go to the mill while Claire remained somewhere else.
“He’s setting a trap,” I said.
“Then we use the time he gave us,” Mara replied.
The operation moved quickly.
Ortega pulled property records. Wyatt identified the likely warehouse. Mara contacted a federal tactical team she trusted.
I was ordered to remain inside the fire station.
I agreed.
Then I waited until everyone was occupied and took Ortega’s spare keys from the table.
I knew David better than any of them did.
If armed agents surrounded the warehouse, he would see them coming.
But he would never expect his obedient wife to walk through the front door.
I drove toward the freight yards with the copied flash drive in my purse.
At 11:17 p.m., I entered Building Twelve.
Claire was still tied to the chair.
David stood behind her with a gun pressed against her head.
He smiled when he saw me.
“I knew you would come alone.”
I placed the drive on the concrete floor.
“Let her go.”
David tilted his head.
“You still think this is about the drive?”
His father stepped from the shadows.
May you like
Charles Mercer held my mother’s original letter in one hand.
“No, Anna,” he said. “This is about the child you’re carrying.”
