Chapter 8 - The Cabin Across the State Line
Tessa remembered hearing Warren mention a hunting property in Wyoming.
It belonged to a shell company connected to Cole Furnishings.
Detective Hayes obtained a search warrant.
Lucas stayed with Maisie while I traveled with police.
Maisie was improving, but she still woke crying whenever she heard a metal lid close.
Before I left, she held my hand.
“Is Grandpa coming back?”
“Not near you.”
“Is Aunt Tessa bad?”
I did not know how to answer.
“She made a terrible choice.”
“Because Grandpa told her?”
“Yes.”
Maisie looked down.
“Grandpa told me you would stop loving me if I didn’t sleep.”
My chest tightened.
“I will never stop loving you.”
She nodded slowly.
“Even if I tell secrets?”
“Especially then.”
The Wyoming cabin sat deep inside a pine forest.
Police approached quietly.
The front door was locked from the outside.
Inside, they found a woman chained to a radiator.
She was alive.
Barely.
Rachel Pierce was forty-six now, though the old company photograph showed her at thirty-five. Her hair was streaked with gray. Her face was thin.
She flinched when anyone moved too quickly.
Paramedics freed her.
“Warren?” she whispered.
“He is not here,” Hayes said.
Rachel looked at me.
“You’re Rebecca.”
“How do you know me?”
“Hannah carried your photograph.”
Rachel explained that after the staged crash, Warren imprisoned her in several properties over the years.
He forced her to help maintain false accounts because she alone understood the structure.
Whenever she refused, he threatened Hannah and the rest of us.
“Why didn’t he kill you?”
“He needed passwords. And he enjoyed knowing I was alive while everyone thought Hannah was responsible.”
“Where is Hannah?”
Rachel started crying.
“She came two nights ago.”
Hannah had broken into the cabin but could not remove the chains.
She went to find bolt cutters and help.
When she returned, Warren was there.
A fight followed.
Hannah escaped.
Warren moved Rachel to another room but left before finishing.
“Did he take the metal case?”
“Yes.”
“What will he do with it?”
“Destroy it after he accesses the account codes.”
The case contained original ledgers and recorded conversations, but also keys to offshore accounts holding more than forty million dollars.
Money Warren had stolen over twenty years.
Rachel gave police the name of a private airfield.
Warren kept a plane there.
He would flee once he emptied the accounts.
Then Hayes found fresh blood near the back door.
A trail led into the trees.
We followed it for nearly half a mile.
Hannah lay beneath a fallen branch, unconscious from a gunshot wound to her side.
I dropped beside her.
“Hannah?”
Her eyes opened.
For the first time in eleven years, my sister looked at me.
“Becca?”
I grabbed her hand.
“I’m here.”
She smiled weakly.
“Did Maisie survive?”
“Yes.”
Relief crossed her face.
Then she whispered, “Warren wasn’t working alone.”
“Who helped him?”
Hannah looked past me toward the cabin.
May you like
“Elaine knew Rachel was alive.”
👉 Warren had committed the violence, but Hannah’s final warning revealed that their mother had helped maintain the prison for years.
