Chapter 10 - The Wrong Warehouse
Police entered Unit 12 at 10:14 p.m.
Lena was not there.
Ethan learned that from Harris’s call forty minutes later.
They found a mattress.
Food wrappers.
A chair matching the one in the photograph.
Newspapers.
A broken phone.
And Lena’s fingerprints.
“She was there,” Harris said.
Ethan sat on the edge of his bed.
“How long ago?”
“Forensics will tell us more. Probably moved recently.”
“After Brooke recorded Grant.”
“That’s my guess.”
“Then we scared them.”
“Yes.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
He had wanted proof.
Now every piece of proof seemed to make Lena harder to reach.
“What about Whitmore?”
“Still missing.”
“Mercer?”
“Lawyered up.”
“Grant?”
“Claims he has no knowledge of the warehouse because the property is managed by a subsidiary.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Harris was silent.
Then he said, “This isn’t your fault.”
Ethan looked toward the cafeteria video paused on his laptop.
He didn’t answer.
The next morning Brooke gave a formal statement.
Her attorney was not hired by Grant.
Her aunt, Rebecca Hayes, flew in from Denver and retained a different lawyer after Brooke called her from the police station.
Grant responded by freezing Brooke’s credit cards and releasing a statement claiming his daughter was “emotionally distressed and being manipulated.”
Brooke saw the statement on television.
“That’s what he does,” she said.
Ethan sat at the opposite end of Harris’s conference room.
They were not friends.
Harris had made that clear.
They were witnesses in the same investigation.
Nothing more.
Brooke slid the cracked smartwatch across the table.
“Forensics got the whole recording?”
“Yes,” Harris said.
“Good.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What else haven’t you told us?”
Brooke stiffened.
“I told you everything.”
“No. You told us what you were ready to admit.”
Her attorney started to object.
Brooke raised a hand.
“He’s right.”
She looked at Ethan.
“The night Lena was taken, I got into Mercer’s SUV after her.”
Ethan stared.
“Why?”
“I tried to make him stop.”
“Where did you go?”
“Only for a few blocks. My dad intercepted us.”
“Grant was there?”
Brooke nodded.
“He was furious. At me, not Mercer.”
Harris leaned forward.
“What exactly did he say?”
Brooke swallowed.
“He said, ‘You were supposed to get the files, not climb into the car.’”
“Then?”
“Lena was in the back seat. She was yelling that she had backups.”
Ethan’s hands tightened.
“My dad told Mercer, ‘Then find the backups.’”
“Did he say where they were taking her?”
“No.”
“What happened to you?”
“My dad put me in his car and drove me home.”
“And your bracelet?”
“I must have lost it in Mercer’s SUV.”
Harris made notes.
Brooke looked toward Ethan.
“There’s something else Lena said.”
“What?”
“When my father leaned into the SUV, Lena looked directly at him and said, ‘Caroline kept originals.’”
Ethan stopped breathing.
Brooke continued.
“My father said, ‘Caroline is gone.’”
Caroline, seated behind Ethan, became perfectly still.
“And Lena said, ‘Her son isn’t.’”
Ethan turned toward his mother.
“You never told Lena about the ledger.”
“No.”
“Then how did she know?”
Caroline thought.
“My audit software generated duplicate verification codes. If Lena found the old audit log, she might have realized an external backup existed.”
Harris looked at Ethan.
“So Lena may have contacted you partly because she believed you had evidence.”
“I didn’t.”
“But Grant didn’t know that.”
Ethan understood.
The harassment.
The defamation threat.
The fixation on him.
Grant Hayes did not simply want Ethan silent.
He thought Ethan possessed Caroline’s originals.
His mother closed her eyes.
“I put you in danger without even knowing it.”
Ethan did not answer.
Harris’s phone rang.
A detective from the warehouse search.
He listened.
Then asked them to repeat something.
“What did you find?”
Harris put the phone on speaker.
The detective said, “Writing underneath the desk. Scratched into the wood.”
“What does it say?”
A pause.
Then:
“River Freight is wrong.”
Ethan stared.
The detective continued.
“There’s another line.”
“What?”
“‘Twelve isn’t a unit.’”
Brooke leaned forward.
“Then what is twelve?”
Ethan’s mind raced.
The road marker in Lena’s photograph.
121.
The handwritten note.
FREIGHT — 12.
He pulled up a railway map.
Then he saw it.
“Track twelve.”
Everyone turned toward him.
“Westbridge River Freight has an old siding called Track Twelve.”
Harris moved behind him.
The track ran north.
Past the warehouse.
Past city limits.
And ended at a decommissioned freight transfer station beside a private industrial property.
Owner:
Hayes Logistics LLC.
Caroline whispered, “Grant.”
Before anyone could move, Brooke’s phone—returned temporarily for evidence review—received a message.
Unknown number.
A photograph.
Grant Hayes standing beside Lena Ortiz.
Lena’s hands were free.
Grant looked directly into the camera.
Beneath it was one sentence.
May you like
Bring Caroline’s originals, or the next move is yours to explain.
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