Rebecca Sloan was found before Colin.
That surprised everyone.
According to Detective Ortiz, officers reached her apartment less than an hour after identifying her in the ATM footage. She was frightened, exhausted, and angry.
Most importantly, she did not run.
Colin did.
“He left her?” I asked.
Ortiz called me from her car.
“About ten minutes before officers arrived.”
“Why?”
“We’re trying to determine that.”
“Did she help him?”
“She was with him.”
“That seems like helping.”
Ortiz sighed.
“Ethan, every fact does not arrive with motive attached.”
I knew the lecture by then.
Facts first.
Meaning later.
Still, Rebecca’s presence felt impossible to separate from what had happened to Nora.
The medications in Nora’s system matched prescriptions issued in Rebecca’s name.
At least one pharmacy bag from those prescriptions had been found inside Vanessa’s bathroom.
Now Rebecca had been seen with Colin while he was actively avoiding investigators.
I wanted a clean answer.
Instead we got Rebecca.
Ortiz interviewed her at the station with another detective.
I was not present, of course, but hours later Ortiz summarized what Rebecca had said after consulting prosecutors about what could be disclosed to me as Nora’s parent.
The first surprise was that Rebecca claimed she had never met Vanessa.
“Impossible,” I said.
“Maybe.”
“The prescription bag was in Vanessa’s bathroom.”
“Yes.”
“So Rebecca is lying.”
“Possibly.”
“What does she say happened?”
Rebecca had worked for Colin at Mercer Advisory eighteen months earlier.
She handled bookkeeping and administrative work.
During that period she had been prescribed medication after a series of personal health issues.
Several months later, she noticed pills missing.
She blamed herself.
Then a second prescription refill disappeared entirely from her office bag.
When she confronted Colin about theft in the office, he dismissed her.
Two weeks later she was fired.
“Did she report it?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“She says she had no proof and was embarrassed about the medications.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“And today?”
“Colin contacted her last night.”
“After the tracker was found?”
“Likely.”
“What did he want?”
“He told her investigators might contact her because Vanessa had stolen medication using information from old employee files.”
“That is convenient.”
“Yes.”
“He was trying to blame Vanessa?”
“That appears possible.”
“Then why did Rebecca meet him?”
Ortiz paused.
“Because Colin offered her twenty thousand dollars.”
I stared at the phone.
“For what?”
“To sign a statement claiming she had personally given medication to Vanessa months earlier.”
There it was.
Not merely running.
Constructing a story while he ran.
“Did she agree?”
“She says no.”
“She got into a car with him.”
“She says she told him she wanted cash upfront, intending to record him.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
My grip tightened on the phone.
“There’s a recording?”
“There is.”
The audio lasted fourteen minutes.
Ortiz would not send it to me, but she described the relevant sections.
Rebecca asked why her prescriptions mattered.
Colin told her Vanessa had made “poor choices.”
Rebecca asked whether a child had been harmed.
Colin avoided answering.
Then Rebecca asked why he wanted her to say she gave Vanessa the drugs.
Colin responded that “everyone needed one version.”
The phrase stayed with me.
One version.
That was what this entire scheme had been.
A version of Nora.
A version of me.
A version of Vanessa.
A version of concern.
Each piece arranged until the lie looked like a family trying to manage an unstable child.
Rebecca pushed him harder.
“What actually happened to the girl?”
Colin told her, “Nothing permanent.”
When Ortiz repeated those words, I had to put the phone down.
Nothing permanent.
As though temporary terror was acceptable.
As though Nora’s pounding heart, confusion, shaking hands, exhaustion, and fear could be measured only by whether the damage lasted forever.
“Ethan?”
I picked up the phone again.
“I’m here.”
“Rebecca also asked whether Vanessa knew the medication was stolen.”
“What did Colin say?”
“He told her Vanessa knew enough.”
That answer was maddeningly vague.
But it connected them.
“Where is Colin now?”
“We don’t know.”
He had abandoned the rental car used that morning and switched vehicles again.
The ATM withdrawal Rebecca witnessed had been money intended as partial payment.
Rebecca had not known police were already searching for Colin until she saw patrol cars near her apartment.
He left the moment he realized.
“Is she under arrest?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“She is cooperating, and at this stage we have evidence she may be more witness than participant.”
I disliked it.
Then I remembered Ortiz’s repeated warning about deciding guilt before evidence.
I forced myself to ask a better question.
“Does Rebecca know where Colin would go?”
“She gave us possibilities.”
One was a small vacation property inland owned by Colin’s brother.
Another was a marina where he occasionally rented slips through corporate clients.
A third was Mexico.
Police worked all three.
Meanwhile, Vanessa changed tactics.
She hired an attorney.
Not a family lawyer.
A criminal defense attorney.
By afternoon, every direct message from her stopped.
Instead Miriam received a formal communication proposing that Vanessa temporarily vacate our house in exchange for retrieving personal belongings under supervision.
“Take it,” I said.
Miriam studied me across Louise’s dining table.
“You want her out.”
“I want her nowhere near Nora.”
“The agreement can formalize that.”
“Then do it.”
“Ethan.”
“What?”
“Do not let your anger make you careless.”
“I’m agreeing with you.”
“No. You’re agreeing quickly.”
She slid the proposed terms toward me.
“They want access to certain personal records.”
“What records?”
“Her laptop, tax documents, clothing, medication, jewelry.”
“The police seized electronics.”
“Some.”
“Then let them take whatever investigators approve.”
“Good.”
Miriam pointed to another clause.
“They also want you to agree that removing Vanessa is not an admission of wrongdoing.”
I laughed.
“I don’t care what the removal means legally. She’s leaving.”
Miriam nodded.
“That is the correct priority.”
By sunset, Vanessa entered the house accompanied by her attorney, one investigator, and a neutral property representative.
Caleb watched the exterior feed.
I watched nothing.
I stayed with Nora.
She was building a paper castle.
“Can the dragon be nice?” she asked.
“Your dragon.”
“Nice dragons are boring.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“To see if you’d tell me what to do.”
I smiled despite myself.
“What did I score?”
“You passed.”
Louise, washing dishes, hid a smile.
Then Nora asked, “Is Vanessa moving out?”
“Yes.”
“For forever?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She looked disappointed.
“You don’t?”
“She won’t live with us while the police are figuring this out.”
“Then can I sleep in my room again?”
The question hurt.
“Not tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to make sure the house is completely safe first.”
She accepted this more easily than I expected.
Then she said, “Check the blue box.”
I looked at her.
“What blue box?”
“In Vanessa’s closet.”
Louise turned off the faucet.
“What’s in it?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How do you know about it?”
Nora folded a paper tower.
“Vanessa got really mad when I touched it.”
“When?”
“Before you went to Phoenix.”
“What did it look like?”
“Blue. Shiny. Like Grandma’s cookie tin but square.”
“Where in the closet?”
“Behind her boots.”
I immediately called Ortiz.
Police were still at the house.
The search warrant covered relevant areas, but Nora’s specific information gave investigators a new location to examine.
Fifteen minutes later, Ortiz called back.
“They found it.”
My pulse jumped.
“What’s inside?”
“Some items we need to process.”
“What items?”
“A second dropper bottle.”
I closed my eyes.
“Full?”
“Partially.”
“Anything else?”
“Memory cards. Printed photos. A small notebook.”
“What photos?”
“Nora.”
My stomach turned.
“Doing what?”
“Sleeping. Crying. Sitting at the table.”
“Why?”
“We’re figuring that out.”
“And the notebook?”
Ortiz hesitated.
“It contains dates.”
“What dates?”
“Your business travel.”
I sat down.
Of course.
The entire scheme depended on my absence.
“Does it match the times Nora was drugged?”
“We haven’t fully compared it yet.”
“Anything written beside the dates?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Single letters. A, S, V.”
I knew immediately.
“Agitated. Sedated. Video.”
Ortiz did not answer for a moment.
“That’s one possible interpretation.”
“It’s exactly what they mean.”
“Maybe.”
Her caution no longer frustrated me.
I understood why she used it.
If this went to court, Nora deserved a case built from proof, not fury.
Later that night, Caleb came by.
He looked exhausted.
“I traced the tracker service.”
I straightened.
“To Colin?”
“Indirectly.”
The GPS account had been opened using a prepaid business card.
The business name was West Bay Property Solutions.
Meaningless at first.
Then Caleb traced domain registration history.
West Bay’s contact email had once been linked to an account controlled by Mercer Advisory.
“Colin.”
“Looks like it.”
“Can police use that?”
“They already have it.”
Caleb sat opposite me.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
“The device transmitted its location every three minutes.”
“Okay.”
“So whoever was watching it had a live map.”
I pictured my car moving through San Diego.
Nora in the back seat.
Someone watching us as a dot.
“Can you see where the account was accessed?”
“That’s the interesting part.”
He turned his laptop.
Most logins came through masked internet connections.
One did not.
The night the tracker was attached, someone logged into the service at 8:12 p.m. from our home internet.
My house.
Vanessa.
“She monitored the tracker.”
Caleb pointed to the screen.
“At least someone using your network did.”
“Could Colin have been there?”
“Possible.”
Security footage would answer that.
It did.
At 7:54 p.m., while Nora and I were at Louise’s, a vehicle stopped two houses away.
Colin entered through the side gate.
Vanessa let him in.
He stayed thirty-one minutes.
At 8:26, he left carrying a small black bag.
The GPS service had been accessed at 8:12.
I watched the footage twice.
No words were needed.
While Nora sat at Louise’s table eating crackers, Vanessa and Colin were inside my home monitoring our location.
“Why not follow us directly?” I asked.
Caleb shrugged.
“Less visible. The tracker lets them know where you stay long enough to matter.”
The threatening photograph had been taken hours later.
Someone drove to Louise’s.
Someone stood behind the house.
Someone photographed Nora sleeping.
The next morning, police found another entry in the blue notebook.
It consisted of four words written beneath the previous day’s date.
E leaves. N speaks.
Below that:
If E returns, accelerate.
I read the photograph of the page.
“Accelerate what?”
Ortiz said, “We’re working on that.”
By noon, they had an answer.
A second memory card from the blue box contained video Vanessa had apparently recorded herself three nights before my canceled Denver trip.
She and Colin sat in our bedroom.
Colin held a copy of the trust amendment.
“If he signs willingly, we’re finished,” he said.
Vanessa looked toward the door.
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then after the next episode, you push the placement option harder.”
“He’ll resist.”
“Then you give him a reason not to.”
“What reason?”
Colin leaned toward her.
“We stop making the girl look unstable.”
Vanessa frowned.
“What do we make her look like?”
Colin answered.
“Dangerous.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: The Plan Was Never Supposed to Stop at Making Nora Look Sick, and the Next Recorded Conversation Revealed Their Final Pressure Point
Fifteen Minutes Before Leaving, My Daughter Told Me What Happened in Our Kitchen Whenever I Was Away
Part 6 of 12
