Chapter 7 - The Agent Sarah Feared
I lowered the laptop screen before Agent Cross could see it.
Naomi’s eyes shifted toward the door.
“What does the message say?” she asked quietly.
I turned the laptop enough for her to read it.
Her expression remained controlled, but her hand moved toward the phone in her pocket.
“Do you trust him?” I whispered.
“I trust evidence.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
The answer frightened me more than hesitation would have.
Agent Cross entered without knocking.
“Officers found something beneath the caretaker’s cottage,” he said. “A locked storage room.”
“What was inside?” Naomi asked.
“Records from the Vale Foundation. Photographs. Audio cassettes. Sarah Mitchell’s belongings.”
He glanced at the laptop.
“What did Emma send?”
Naomi closed it completely.
“A request to speak with Claire.”
Cross looked at me.
“I don’t recommend direct contact yet.”
“Why?”
“Emma may have been influenced by Jonathan Reed.”
“Or she knows something you don’t want me to hear.”
The room changed.
Cross’s expression did not, but his attention became sharper.
“Why would you say that?”
I watched him carefully.
“Sarah knew you.”
His eyes flickered.
It was small.
But I saw it.
Naomi stepped between us.
“Daniel, were you connected to the original investigation?”
Cross looked toward the door, then closed it.
“Yes.”
The word landed heavily.
“How?” I demanded.
“I was a county detective when Sarah disappeared.”
“You investigated Marcus?”
“I interviewed him.”
“And believed him?”
“For a time.”
“What does that mean?”
Cross dragged a chair away from the wall and sat.
“Sarah contacted me two weeks before she vanished. She said her husband was drugging her, controlling her accounts, and planning to declare her mentally incompetent.”
The story was mine.
Every detail.
“She told you about the cage?”
“No.”
“Did you help her?”
“I tried.”
“Then why was she buried without a name?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because I made a mistake.”
I wanted to throw something at him.
“What mistake?”
“She asked me to meet her at a bus station. She claimed she had evidence against Marcus and several local officials. Before I arrived, my supervisor ordered me back to the department.”
“Why?”
“He said Sarah had been located safely and did not want police contact.”
“And you accepted that?”
“I was twenty-seven years old. Marcus’s father was one of the county’s largest donors. Vivian sat on the hospital board. Dr. Lang had already submitted a letter claiming Sarah suffered from paranoid delusions.”
“So you abandoned her.”
“Yes.”
The honesty stunned me.
Cross looked at Grace.
“Three days later, Sarah vanished. I continued asking questions. I was suspended, then transferred. By the time her body was found, the case was assigned to another jurisdiction and treated as an unidentified drowning.”
“Why didn’t you recognize her?”
“The body had been in the water for months. The report never reached me.”
Emma’s warning remained on the laptop.
DO NOT TRUST DANIEL CROSS.
“Sarah left evidence,” I said.
Cross nodded.
“She told me she had made copies.”
“Did you ever receive them?”
“No.”
Naomi folded her arms.
“What happened to your supervisor?”
“He became police chief.”
“Name?”
“Richard Hale.”
I knew that name.
Chief Hale had attended our wedding.
He had also been one of Marcus’s dinner guests.
“The police chief was upstairs?” Evelyn asked.
Cross nodded.
“He left before we entered the basement.”
“How?”
“The officers secured the dining room.”
“He wasn’t in the dining room. Security footage shows him leaving through the kitchen seven minutes before entry.”
Naomi opened the laptop again.
“Who warned him?”
No one answered.
Grace stirred in the bassinet.
I lifted her carefully and held her against my shoulder.
Marcus’s power had never come only from money.
It came from people who protected him.
Doctors who wrote false records.
Police leaders who ignored desperate women.
Employees who accepted babies without asking where they came from.
Guests who ate dinner above a basement and believed whatever made the evening more comfortable.
“Bring Emma to me,” I said.
Cross shook his head.
“We need to debrief her first.”
“No.”
“Claire—”
“She warned me about you because she knew Sarah did not trust you. Maybe Sarah was wrong. Maybe she wasn’t. But Emma chooses where she speaks.”
Naomi looked at Cross.
“She’s right.”
Cross stood.
“This is not safe.”
“Neither was your investigation eleven years ago,” I said.
The words struck him.
He left without replying.
Two hours later, Emma arrived through a private hospital entrance.
She was tall and painfully thin, wearing jeans, heavy boots, and a jacket too large for her. Jonathan Reed walked beside her under police supervision.
The moment Emma saw me, she stopped.
Her gaze moved to Grace.
“That’s my sister,” she said.
Not a question.
I nodded.
Emma entered slowly.
She looked like Marcus around the eyes, but her expression belonged to someone else. Someone cautious. Someone who had learned to keep every feeling hidden.
“I’m Claire.”
“I know.”
“Did Jonathan tell you who your parents were?”
“No. I found out six months ago.”
“How?”
Emma removed a small brass key from a cord around her neck.
“My mother hid a box beneath the barn floor. Jonathan knew about it, but he was afraid to open it.”
Jonathan lowered his head.
Emma placed the key in my palm.
“Inside were tapes, letters, and photographs. She recorded everything Marcus did.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“She wrote not to trust Chief Hale.”
“What about Agent Cross?”
Emma looked toward the door.
“My mother’s last tape says Daniel Cross gave Marcus her location.”
My skin went cold.
Cross had claimed his supervisor called him away from the bus station.
“What exactly did she say?”
Emma took an old cassette player from her bag.
“My mother recorded this the night she disappeared.”
She pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman began speaking.
Her voice was weak but clear.
If anyone finds this, Marcus knows where I am. Detective Cross was the only person I told.
A door slammed somewhere on the recording.
Sarah inhaled sharply.
Then came a man’s voice.
Not Marcus.
“Sarah, you need to come with me.”
Emma stopped the tape.
“Is that Agent Cross?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Then who?”
Jonathan Reed finally spoke.
“Daniel had a brother.”
Naomi’s face tightened.
“Thomas Cross.”
Jonathan nodded.
“He worked for Marcus’s father.”
A gunshot cracked outside the hospital room.
The two officers in the hallway shouted.
Emma dropped to the floor.
May you like
A second shot shattered the window.
Glass exploded across Grace’s bassinet.
