Chapter 10 - THE LIFE SHE BUILT AROUND ME
The police moved Perrin and me to a secure house before sunrise.
I hated leaving home.
But after seeing my initials in Mara's ledger, I stopped arguing.
Rhea had spent years planning.
Mara had been the first obstacle.
I was supposed to be the second.
Ortiz explained what investigators had found.
A life insurance policy had been increased six months earlier.
Rhea was not directly listed as beneficiary.
Perrin was.
But a trust amendment drafted by our family attorney would have made Rhea trustee after our marriage.
If I died, she would control nearly everything until Perrin turned twenty-five.
The wedding was eleven weeks away.
My death had probably been scheduled sometime after that.
Perrin sat at the kitchen table drawing while Ortiz spoke.
I watched him color Scout with a blue crayon.
He had survived all of this without understanding any of it.
That made it worse.
My phone buzzed.
A video had arrived from an unknown number.
Ortiz took the phone.
The video showed Mara sitting in the back seat of a vehicle.
Her hands were tied.
A strip of silver tape covered her mouth.
Rhea sat beside her.
"Hello, Caleb."
I felt my jaw tighten.
"By now, you found the book."
Rhea smiled.
"You always were easier to predict than Mara."
She leaned closer to the camera.
"Bring it to Saint Agnes Quarry at six tonight."
"Come alone."
"No police."
"No trackers."
"No heroic ideas."
Then she removed the tape from Mara's mouth.
Mara looked into the camera.
"Don't bring it."
Rhea struck her.
I moved toward the screen as though I could reach through it.
Perrin looked up.
I immediately turned the phone away.
Rhea grabbed Mara's hair.
"Tell him again."
Mara looked directly into the camera.
Her lip was bleeding.
"Burn it."
Rhea's smile vanished.
The video ended.
Ortiz looked at me.
"You're not going alone."
"She'll know."
"She expects police."
"She said no police."
"Kidnappers always say no police."
I looked at the ledger inside the evidence case.
"Make a copy."
"We already did."
"I mean make something that looks exactly like it."
Ortiz understood.
At 5:42 p.m., I drove toward Saint Agnes Quarry carrying a duplicate blue ledger.
A transmitter had been sewn inside my belt.
Another was hidden in the car.
Ortiz's team followed from several miles back.
The quarry had been abandoned since the 1990s.
Broken concrete buildings surrounded a flooded pit.
At exactly six, a phone started ringing inside an old guard booth.
I answered.
Rhea.
"Walk north."
I followed a dirt path.
"Stop at the red truck."
An abandoned truck sat near a collapsed fence.
"Leave your phone."
I placed it on the hood.
"Keep walking."
She was watching.
Somewhere.
I continued.
The path ended beside an old maintenance building.
The door was open.
Inside sat a chair.
Mara's blue sweater had been placed across it.
My heart stopped.
Then I saw writing on the wall.
Fresh.
Black marker.
YOU BROUGHT POLICE.
My earpiece crackled.
Ortiz shouted.
"Caleb, get out."
A vehicle engine roared behind the building.
I ran outside.
A dark van tore across the gravel.
I saw Rhea driving.
For one second, I saw Mara through the rear window.
Alive.
Then the van disappeared through the northern gate.
Ortiz's vehicles moved after it.
The pursuit lasted six minutes.
Then the van was found abandoned beside the highway.
Rhea and Mara were gone.
But inside the van, police discovered something unexpected.
A folded note beneath the passenger seat.
May you like
Mara had written one sentence.
SHE THINKS YOU FOUND THE WRONG BOOK.
