Chapter 7 - THE CABIN AT MILLBROOK LAKE
Detective Alvarez moved quickly.
By noon, police had identified a cabin registered to one of Jason’s false names.
It sat outside Millbrook beside an isolated lake.
Sarah had never known he owned it.
Neither had anyone else.
Alvarez asked Emily several questions over the phone.
Did the cabin have a dock?
Yes.
Was there a shed?
Yes.
Was the front door red?
No.
Blue.
That detail matched the property photographs investigators found online.
Police obtained a warrant.
I stayed home again.
Waiting became its own kind of torture.
Emily sat beside me on the couch.
“Are they finding Mom?”
“They’re looking.”
“Will they find her?”
I wanted to promise her they would.
Instead, I told her the truth.
“They’re doing everything they can.”
At 2:43 p.m., Alvarez called.
“They’re inside.”
I stood.
“And?”
“The cabin is empty.”
My heart dropped.
“But someone was here recently.”
“How recently?”
“Possibly this morning.”
Investigators found food on the kitchen counter.
A chair had been moved against the back door.
A blanket was on the floor of one bedroom.
Sarah’s watch was beneath a table.
They also found another phone.
The device belonged to Jason.
He had abandoned it deliberately.
“That means he knew you were coming.”
“Probably.”
“How?”
“We’re trying to figure that out.”
Then Alvarez told me about the map.
It was pinned to the cabin wall.
Several locations had been circled.
Millbrook.
Our town.
The river warehouse.
A private airfield.
And one location nearly ninety miles west.
Stonebridge Storage.
“What is Stonebridge Storage?”
“A self-storage facility.”
“Do you think Sarah is there?”
“We don’t know.”
I looked at Emily.
She was watching my face.
I stepped into the hallway.
“Go.”
“We already have units headed there.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
“Because there’s something else.”
Alvarez sent me a photograph.
It showed the cabin wall.
Beside the map was a printed picture of me.
Another photograph showed Emily leaving school.
A third showed Sarah entering a bank.
Jason had been watching all of us.
“He knew Sarah might give the evidence to you.”
Alvarez said.
“That’s why he searched your life too.”
I looked toward my front door.
Suddenly my own home no longer felt safe.
“Should we leave?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I’m sending officers.”
“Alvarez.”
“Yes?”
“Find Sarah.”
There was a brief silence.
“We will.”
I ended the call.
Then I walked back into the living room.
Emily had picked up the picture she had been drawing.
She added something beside the cabin.
A tall wooden structure.
“What’s that?”
I asked.
“The old water tower.”
“Near the cabin?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Jason said it was near the place where nobody asks questions.”
Something about the phrase bothered me.
“Did he say anything else?”
Emily nodded.
“He told the man named Cole they could switch cars there.”
I called Alvarez again.
The detective immediately searched the area west of Millbrook.
May you like
There was only one abandoned water tower near Stonebridge.
It stood less than half a mile from the storage facility.
