Chapter 7 - THE MAN IN THE HOUSE
Police arrived three minutes after the intruder fled through the back door. He left muddy prints and a knife, but not a single fingerprint.
Rios studied the recording. “We can’t identify a man from a ring. But I can use this to seek records and question people.”
Lily cried when she saw her rabbit’s torn stomach. She had slept holding that rabbit since Emily died. I asked Mrs. Alvarez for a sewing kit and repaired it with clumsy stitches while Lily watched.
“Mommy used to make them smaller,” she said.
“I know. I’m still learning.”
She rested her head on my shoulder. For a few minutes, the world narrowed to thread and a child breathing beside me.
Rios called after midnight. The flash drive contained contractor invoices and payment logs, but files had been altered. She was sending them for forensic review. One filename kept appearing in Emily’s notes: BLUE HOUSE.
My mother knew it immediately.
“Mercer promised to build a shelter on Blue House Lane,” she said. “The city gave him millions. Nothing was ever finished.”
At dawn, I drove with Rios to the vacant lot. We found a chain-link fence, broken concrete, and a faded sign announcing FAMILY HOUSING COMING SOON.
A woman with a camera approached. “You’re Daniel Reed. I’m Nora Bell, the reporter Emily contacted.”
I had never heard her name.
Nora handed me a copy of an email. Emily had sent it four hours before her fatal crash.
If anything happens to me, ask Daniel what his father put under the floor at the Blue House site.
My father had never mentioned a floor.
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Behind us, Rios’s radio crackled. An officer had found a locked basement below the abandoned foundation.
Inside, someone had recently been living.
