Chapter 10 - The House on Briar Road
The brick building in the photograph was a group home outside Kansas City.
It took Ruiz less than an hour to identify it.
Briar Road Supported Living.
Emma could barely breathe during the drive.
“What if she’s dead?” she asked.
David kept one hand on the wheel and the other around hers.
“Then we learn the truth.”
“And if she’s alive?”
Samuel answered from the back seat.
“Then we don’t waste another day.”
The director at Briar Road remembered Evelyn immediately.
“Eve Lane,” she said. “Quiet woman. Brain injury. Memory gaps. Sweet as could be.”
Emma gripped the counter. “Where is she?”
The director’s expression changed.
“She left three years ago.”
“With Richard Lane?” Ruiz asked.
“No. A woman named Margaret Cole.”
Samuel stiffened. “Margaret?”
Emma looked at him.
“Who is that?”
“Richard’s sister.”
The director pulled an old file.
“Margaret said she was family. We confirmed paperwork through an attorney.”
“Address?” Ruiz asked.
“Last known was outside Cedar Ridge.”
Samuel knew Cedar Ridge.
Small town. Farms. Woods. Few neighbors.
The kind of place where a person could disappear without going very far.
They drove another ninety minutes.
The address led to a faded white farmhouse behind a line of cottonwoods.
No car in the driveway.
No lights.
Ruiz told them to stay back while she knocked.
Nobody answered.
She walked around the house and called through an open kitchen window.
Then she froze.
“Samuel.”
He ignored her warning and hurried up the steps.
Inside, on the kitchen table, sat a cup of tea.
Steam still rose from it.
Someone had been there minutes earlier.
Emma entered behind him.
On the refrigerator was a child’s drawing in blue crayon.
A stick-figure woman stood beside a little girl.
Above them were two names.
EVE.
EMMA.
May you like
Emma touched the paper.
Then a floorboard creaked upstairs.
