Chapter 7 - The Threat Was Already Waiting
Police checked my property.
Rex was alive.
But somebody had entered the fenced yard.
The side gate was open.
A piece of raw meat lay near the back steps.
Rex hadn’t eaten it.
He was trained better than that.
The meat was collected.
I was told not to speculate about what it contained.
So I didn’t.
I brought Rex to Sarah’s house only after investigators cleared the location for us to retrieve essentials.
Lily wrapped both arms around his neck.
For the first time all day, she smiled.
Then she saw Greg’s truck through the window.
Her smile disappeared.
That told me everything I needed about where she felt safe.
Greg was not allowed near her.
The legal process would determine the longer-term restrictions.
Sarah didn’t argue.
She had stopped defending him.
Then investigators confirmed Melissa had entered town the previous evening.
Traffic-camera and phone-location evidence supported parts of Greg’s account.
She had been near the Carter home.
She had left before dawn.
But there was another surprise.
Melissa had contacted Sarah six weeks earlier.
Sarah had forgotten because the conversation seemed ordinary.
Melissa asked whether Greg was having financial problems.
Sarah said no.
Then Melissa asked whether Greg still had access to an old storage unit their father once rented.
That storage unit belonged to our family.
I knew it.
Our father died nine years earlier.
Greg handled most of his remaining property.
I hadn’t visited the unit in years.
When investigators checked the lease, they found something strange.
Greg had resumed paying for it eight months earlier.
He never told me.
Why?
Greg finally gave an answer.
Melissa had asked him to.
She needed somewhere to store equipment.
“What equipment?”
He claimed he didn’t know.
I no longer believed claims unsupported by evidence.
Then one of the digital specialists examining the drives provided a preliminary finding.
They were encrypted.
But metadata could still reveal limited information.
One device had been accessed less than twelve hours before Lily arrived at the ER.
Another had not been touched for months.
The third showed signs of physical damage.
Someone had tried to destroy it.
Melissa hadn’t merely hidden information.
She had been trying to preserve some of it.
That raised an uncomfortable possibility.
Maybe the insects weren’t intended to hurt Lily.
Maybe they were intended to damage the drives.
Heat.
Moisture.
Organic contamination.
A disgusting hiding place nobody would voluntarily search.
But Lily was still the one forced to carry it.
Intent didn’t erase that.
Then Greg asked to speak to Sarah.
She refused.
He gave Officer Ruiz a message instead.
“Tell her Melissa knows what happened to the $84,000.”
Sarah stared at Ruiz.
May you like
“What eighty-four thousand dollars?”
Greg had just revealed a financial secret his wife knew nothing about.
