Gavin had not merely hidden Rebecca.
He had decided to place her disappearance at my door.
### Part 8
The officers searched my house for four hours.
They opened drawers, photographed my office, removed two computers, and examined the locked metal box from my pantry. Emma came home from school midway through the search and stood on the sidewalk clutching her backpack.
Walter intercepted her before she entered.
He took her to his house and made grilled-cheese sandwiches while strangers carried equipment from our front door.
The warrant cited an anonymous witness who claimed Rebecca had met with me repeatedly and expressed fear of my “obsessive conduct.” Her abandoned car contained a printed photograph of me, along with a note listing my address.
The evidence was clumsy but dangerous.
Gavin did not need police to believe I had harmed Rebecca. He needed them to occupy my time, frighten Emma, and create a public association between my name and a missing woman.
By evening, two local news vans had parked near the corner.
I gave no statement.
Simone arrived with another attorney and challenged the seizure of material unrelated to Rebecca. Walter provided security footage from his porch showing Patricia at my house shortly before the police arrived.
More importantly, a camera across from the grocery store showed Gavin’s SUV passing twice during the hour Rebecca disappeared.
It was not enough to charge him.
It was enough to make investigators curious.
At nine that night, Walter and I sat on his porch while Emma slept in his guest room.
Mosquitoes struck the yellow light above us. Somewhere near the lake, a boat engine coughed and went silent.
“You expected retaliation,” Walter said.
“Yes.”
“Did you expect this?”
“Not Rebecca.”
He studied me. “You’re blaming yourself.”
“I placed pressure on the system. She was the weak point.”
“She called you.”
“Because I created a reason.”
“And gave her a way out.”
“Not fast enough.”
Walter leaned forward. “You know what snipers learn before marksmanship?”
“Patience?”
“Responsibility. You can do everything correctly and still watch something terrible happen. That doesn’t make you responsible for the person who chose to do it.”
I understood the logic.
Logic and guilt rarely live in the same room peacefully.
At 10:17, Simone called.
A federal team had located Rebecca at a motel ninety miles away. She was alive and physically unharmed.
Gavin had not abducted her in the conventional sense. Marcus Vail had picked her up and convinced her that federal agents were preparing to arrest her. He offered protection in exchange for signing a statement that I had stolen company records and threatened her.
Rebecca pretended to cooperate.
Then she used the motel telephone while Marcus was asleep.
She had done more than escape.
She had recorded him dictating the false statement.
By midnight, Rebecca sat in a federal building with Simone and two investigators. Her copies of Gavin’s records were stored in a safe-deposit box under her sister’s name.
The video from the night Laura died was there too.
It came from the security system at Reed Residential’s office.
At 10:48 p.m., Laura entered the building carrying a blue ledger.
At 11:16, Gavin arrived.
The camera had no audio, but it showed them arguing. Laura pointed toward the ledger. Gavin blocked the door when she tried to leave.
At 11:29, Marcus entered.
At 11:37, Laura finally exited, visibly upset.
Gavin followed in his SUV.
The camera did not show what happened on County Road 18.
But it proved he lied when he told police he had not seen Laura that night.
Rebecca also remembered something else.
The following morning, Gavin asked her to pay cash for repairs to the front passenger side of his SUV. No insurance claim. No invoice describing the damage.
Investigators requested the old vehicle’s identification records.
It had been sold to a salvage yard two months after Laura’s death.
The yard still had photographs.
