CHAPTER 8 : THE NIGHT JAKE DISAPPEARED
Jake read the message twice.
Then he walked out of the room without speaking.
Police filled my parents’ house. Officers photographed the open safe, the broken kitchen chair, and the grease-covered warning on the wall.
Mom sat in an ambulance with a blanket around her shoulders.
She had a bruise along her temple but refused hospital treatment.
“Victor took Robert,” she told detectives.
“You saw him?” one asked.
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Who else would do this?”
She looked at me as she said it.
The accusation was subtle.
Practiced.
One detective followed her gaze.
“Where were you between eight and ten this morning, Ms. Brooks?”
“At physical therapy.”
“We’ll need confirmation.”
Daniel stepped forward. “You will receive it.”
Mom’s mouth curved slightly.
Even with Dad missing and Victor threatening Jake, part of her still enjoyed seeing me questioned.
That was when I stopped thinking of her as trapped.
For years, I had made excuses.
Mom was afraid of Dad.
Mom wanted to protect the family.
Mom was manipulated by Victor.
Some of that might have been true.
But fear did not explain the pleasure she took in hurting us.
She had made choices.
So had Dad.
So had Madison.
I found Jake in Grandpa’s old garage behind the house.
The building had been mostly abandoned since Grandpa died. Dust covered the workbenches. Faded outlines marked the places where tools once hung.
Jake stood beneath the fluorescent lights, staring at Samuel’s photograph.
“Police want to talk to you,” I said.
“About what?”
“The message.”
“They think I wrote it?”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“You hesitated.”
“They’re checking everyone.”
“Because Dad disappeared after telling you I was nothing.”
“You heard?”
“I was outside the room.”
My stomach sank.
“How much?”
“Enough.”
He set down the photograph.
“You know what’s funny? I kept waiting for him to deny it.”
“Jake—”
“All my life, I thought if I worked hard enough, he’d finally see me. I fixed his car for free. I repaired the roof. I stayed when you left because I thought Mom needed someone.”
His eyes were bright.
“I sold the only thing Grandpa gave me to help you, and I still felt guilty because Dad always said I was selfish.”
“You are not selfish.”
“I know that now.”
He said it with no relief.
Only grief for the years it had taken to believe.
Police released the house that evening.
Mom went to stay with Madison at a luxury hotel near the coast.
Jake refused to leave Grandpa’s garage.
I brought him food and sat on an overturned bucket while he cleaned an old workbench.
Near midnight, my knee began throbbing.
“You need to go home,” he said.
“So do you.”
“I am home.”
“This place doesn’t have heat.”
“It’s July.”
“It also has rats.”
“They’re quieter than our family.”
I almost smiled.
Then his phone buzzed.
He glanced at the screen and turned it facedown.
“Who is it?”
“Nobody.”
“Jake.”
He sighed and handed it to me.
The message came from an unknown number.
I KNOW WHO YOUR FATHER WAS.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH.
An address followed.
A storage facility outside Oceanside.
“No,” I said.
“I wasn’t going.”
“You were absolutely going.”
He looked away.
“We send this to police.”
“And then whoever has the ledger disappears.”
“Victor may be trying to lure you.”
“He already threatened me.”
“Exactly.”
Jake took back the phone.
“Dad could be there.”
“Dad helped destroy Samuel.”
“We don’t know that.”
“You heard him.”
“I heard a coward. Not a murderer.”
I stood, bracing myself against the workbench.
“You are not going.”
“You don’t get to order me around.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“And I’m trying to learn why my father died.”
“We do both. Carefully.”
Jake stared at me.
Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
I should have known that agreement came too easily.
At three in the morning, I woke on the small couch in Grandpa’s office.
The garage door stood open.
Jake’s truck was gone.
I called him.
Straight to voicemail.
The message remained on his phone because he had left the device on the workbench.
He had taken Grandpa’s old truck instead—a vehicle with no GPS tracker and plates that had expired years earlier.
I called Daniel.
Then the police.
Within twenty minutes, every agency searching for Victor and Dad knew Jake was missing.
Security footage showed Grandpa’s truck entering the storage facility at 3:42 a.m.
It never came out.
Police found it parked behind an empty unit.
Blood stained the driver’s seat.
Not much.
But enough.
I stood behind the barricade while investigators searched the property.
My mind rejected every possibility.
Jake alive.
Jake injured.
Jake taken.
Jake lying somewhere alone after spending his entire life believing no one would come for him.
I would come.
I would always come.
A detective approached.
“We found a phone in one of the units.”
“Jake’s?”
“Different device. There’s a video queued on the screen.”
Daniel insisted on viewing it first.
Then he showed me.
Dad sat in a metal chair beneath a hanging light. His lip was split. His hands were tied.
Victor stood behind him.
“Emily,” Victor said to the camera, “your brother came looking for truth. Your father came looking for survival.”
The camera moved.
Jake sat against a wall, conscious but bleeding from a cut near his hairline.
Rage tore through me.
Victor continued.
“You have twelve hours. Bring the flash drive and Harlan’s original video to Pier Nineteen. No police.”
He gripped Dad’s shoulder.
“Robert will give you the ledger.”
Dad looked into the camera.
“Do what he says.”
Jake shouted from the background.
“Don’t bring him anything!”
Victor struck him.
The video shook as I stepped backward.
Daniel caught my arm.
“I’m going,” I said.
“No.”
“He has Jake.”
“And he will kill all three of you if you arrive without a plan.”
“He said no police.”
“Criminals frequently express preferences we do not honor.”
The police built an operation around Pier Nineteen.
The flash drive Victor wanted had already been copied. The original video remained secured.
I would carry duplicates.
A tracking device would be hidden in my brace.
Officers would position themselves inside nearby warehouses and boats.
It was logical.
Professional.
Controlled.
I was still terrified.
At three that afternoon, I walked alone onto the pier.
Wind pushed against my jacket. My knee ached with every step.
Victor waited beside a fishing vessel.
Jake and Dad were not visible.
“You came,” he said.
“Where is my brother?”
“Where are the files?”
I held up a waterproof case.
“Jake first.”
Victor smiled.
“You learned negotiation from Mercer.”
“I learned it from my family.”
He gestured toward the boat.
I boarded.
Inside the cabin, Dad sat with his wrists tied.
Jake was gone.
“Where is he?” I demanded.
Dad looked at me with something close to shame.
“Victor moved him.”
My blood went cold.
“Where?”
Victor closed the cabin door.
“Your brother escaped.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Because he took the ledger.”
I looked at Dad.
He nodded once.
Victor’s calm finally cracked.
“Samuel’s son is as stupid as Samuel was. He thinks evidence makes him safe.”
My phone buzzed inside my pocket.
Victor heard it.
“Take it out.”
I did.
A message from Jake’s abandoned phone number appeared.
Except the phone was still in Grandpa’s garage.
The message contained a photograph.
Jake stood in an unfamiliar workshop holding Samuel’s ledger.
Behind him was Madison.
Her hands were bound.
The message read:
VICTOR LIED.
MADISON KNOWS WHERE SAMUEL DIED.
Dad made a choking sound.
Victor lunged for the phone.
Before he reached me, sirens erupted across the harbor.
The cabin windows shattered inward as officers fired disabling rounds into the boat’s engine.
Victor grabbed me around the neck and pressed a gun beneath my jaw.
Dad shouted.
Officers surrounded the vessel.
Victor dragged me onto the deck.
“Back off!” he screamed.
My injured leg buckled.
He tightened his arm.
The tracking device in my brace had led them directly to us.
But Jake was still missing.
And now Madison was with him.
A loudspeaker ordered Victor to drop the weapon.
He pulled me closer.
Then Dad stepped out of the cabin.
His hands were no longer tied.
He held a small knife.
For one impossible moment, I thought he might help me.
Instead, he looked at Victor and said, “Take her. We can still get out.”
The last piece of hope I had ever carried for my father died on that deck.
Victor stared at him in disgust.
Even he had expected better.
That hesitation saved me.
I drove the point of my crutch backward into Victor’s knee.
He collapsed.
The gun fired into the air.
Officers rushed the boat.
Dad tried to run and was tackled before reaching the rail.
Victor was handcuffed beside him.
As police pulled me away, Dad shouted my name.
I did not turn around.
I was staring at the photograph on my phone.
At Jake.
At Madison.
And at the workshop behind them.
On the wall was an old sign I recognized from childhood.
REED & BROOKS AUTOMOTIVE.
The original Oceanside garage had not been completely destroyed.
May you like
A rear service building still stood.
And that was where Jake had gone to uncover the truth about his father’s death.
