“There was also a flash drive,” Alvarez said.
“And?”
He looked back toward the house before answering.
“And a handgun.”
I went cold.
“Was it used?”
“We don’t know yet.”
The detective studied my face for a second.
“Here’s what we think. Your ex-wife told Trent she was done. Maybe today, maybe earlier. He came over prepared to scare her into staying quiet. We’re still sorting out the sequence. But that cooler?” He exhaled. “It looks like he was gathering anything that tied him to another incident.”
“What other incident?”
He held my gaze.
“Melissa Crane has been missing for six days.”
For a second, I genuinely thought I might throw up.
No one spoke.
Cars kept passing at the end of the street. Somewhere a dog barked. A kid down the block laughed, the sound carrying weirdly through the evening like nothing had happened here at all.
“Are you saying he killed her?”
“I’m saying we don’t know. But we found blood traces on the inside handle of the cooler and on one of the phones. Forensics is on it now.”
My knees felt weak.
Inside the house, through the front window, I could see Rachel’s silhouette at the table. Owen beside her. One small body leaning toward hers as if he could physically keep her from disappearing again.
I thought about the basement.
About the tarp.
The rope.
The duct tape.
The engine running in the driveway.
And for the first time all day, I let myself think the sentence I had been refusing to form:
If Owen hadn’t called me, Rachel might not have survived the night.
Alvarez must have seen something move across my face because his voice softened slightly.
“Your son did exactly the right thing.”
I looked down at the concrete.
“He’s nine.”
“I know.”
The search for Trent lasted all night.
Drones over the retention pond.
K-9 units through the brush behind the elementary school.
Highway patrol watching the interstates.
Rachel and Owen came back to my place after midnight because there was no way in hell either of them was staying in that house. I made Owen hot chocolate he didn’t drink. Rachel sat at my kitchen table in one of my hoodies, staring at her hands while the TV murmured updates no one was really listening to.
At two in the morning, Owen finally fell asleep on my couch with his head in Rachel’s lap.
She kept one hand on his hair and whispered, “I should’ve listened.”
I stood in the doorway, not sure whether to go closer.
“To what?”
“To him,” she said, nodding toward Owen. “He told me he didn’t like Trent. Not kid-dislike. Not picky-dislike. Real fear. And I kept telling myself it was an adjustment.”
She laughed once, and it was an awful sound.
