Chapter 11 - THE ROAD TO CALISTOGA
Richard refused to answer questions.
Adrian denied everything.
Vivian became the only person willing to describe what happened after Elise was carried into the garage.
She said Elise was unconscious but breathing.
Vivian begged Richard to call an ambulance.
Richard refused.
An emergency room would document Elise’s injuries.
A hospital would contact police.
The foundation theft would be exposed.
Richard ordered Adrian to place Elise inside her car.
Pike arrived with a towing truck.
They drove toward the mountains north of Calistoga.
Vivian did not follow.
She claimed she believed they would abandon the vehicle and take Elise somewhere private until she recovered.
No one believed that part.
Search teams returned to the crash site.
The steep road had been rebuilt years earlier, but soil beneath the cliff remained untouched.
Investigators found tire impressions from a heavy truck near the old guardrail.
They also recovered a broken piece of taillight that did not belong to Elise’s car.
It matched the model of Pike’s towing vehicle.
Elise’s exhumation confirmed the original autopsy had been falsified.
She had suffered an injury to the back of her skull before entering the car.
But that was not what killed her.
She died from smoke inhalation.
The vehicle had caught fire after it was pushed over the cliff.
Elise had been alive when the flames began.
I could not stop thinking about the eleven minutes on the recording.
Adrian asking what he had done.
Richard telling him not to panic.
Vivian cleaning the railing.
Every person had made a choice.
Adrian chose violence.
Richard chose concealment.
Vivian chose obedience.
The relatives chose silence.
Elise paid for all of them.
Pike remained missing.
Police traced a call from his phone to a marina in Sausalito.
A boat had been stolen the same night Richard was arrested.
Coast Guard officers located it drifting several miles offshore.
Blood covered the deck.
Pike was nowhere aboard.
A waterproof bag inside the cabin contained cash, ammunition, and printed photographs.
One photograph showed the abandoned Caldwell winery.
Another showed the hidden cellar where Rebecca’s remains had been discovered.
The final photograph showed a woman standing beside Pike.
She had short blond hair and a scar beneath her chin.
Maya recognized her immediately.
“That’s Serena Caldwell.”
Serena had been married to Thomas Caldwell.
The family claimed she died from an overdose seven years earlier.
There had been a funeral.
There had been a closed coffin.
There had been a death certificate signed by Warren Pike’s brother.
But the photograph had been taken only three months earlier.
May you like
Serena was alive.
And according to telephone records, she had been speaking with Pike every week.
