Chapter 5 - THE TRUCK
Travis refused permission to search his truck.
Dana got a warrant.
At 8:42 p.m., an officer opened the rear compartment in the hospital parking garage.
The blue medicine bag sat beneath a moving blanket.
Inside were Caleb’s vaccination records, a thermometer, a half-used bottle of infant acetaminophen, and a pharmacy receipt from the previous week.
There was also a broken gold necklace.
Mia saw it through the evidence bag and began crying.
“That’s Mommy’s.”
Travis stood three feet away with a security officer beside him.
“She leaves stuff everywhere.”
Dana turned the necklace over.
The clasp wasn’t broken.
The chain was.
“Still want to tell me she drove away on her own?”
Travis’s face tightened. “I found the bag in the house.”
“Then why put it in your truck?”
“I was going to take it to the kids.”
“You came to the hospital without it.”
Silence.
Dana’s phone buzzed.
The pharmacy had exterior cameras.
The footage was grainy, but clear enough.
At 3:17 the previous afternoon, Erin’s sedan pulled into the lot.
At 3:20, Travis’s truck entered behind it.
At 3:24, Erin walked toward the pharmacy doors.
At 3:25, Travis caught up with her.
They argued.
There was no audio.
Then Erin stepped backward.
Travis reached for her arm.
The camera angle lost them behind a delivery van.
Four minutes later, Travis returned alone.
He carried Erin’s blue medicine bag.
He also carried something white and rectangular.
An envelope.
Dana paused the video.
“Mia,” she said carefully. “Is that the envelope your mom didn’t want him to have?”
Mia nodded.
Travis slammed his palm against the wall.
“This is ridiculous.”
Security moved toward him.
Then the pharmacy manager called with one more detail.
A second camera showed Travis’s truck leaving the rear lot twenty minutes later.
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Someone was sitting in the passenger seat.
A woman wearing a red scarf.
