Chapter 7 - Susan's Handbag Beside the Bloodstain

Tyler tried to leave the hotel.

He made it three steps into the hallway before Detective Brooks caught his arm.

“Let me go.”

“No.”

“That's my mother.”

“And if Richard has her, running toward him blind helps nobody.”

Tyler jerked free but stopped moving.

For the first time since we were children, I saw him cry without pretending something was in his eye.

I hated Susan.

That was the truth.

She had laughed at the funeral. She had signed papers I did not understand. She had spent years helping Dad make me feel like a tolerated guest in my own family.

But hatred did not make blood beside her handbag less frightening.

Agent Ortiz ordered the lake house treated as a possible crime scene.

The bloodstain was small, found near the desk. No body. No obvious signs of a struggle beyond a broken picture frame and a chair tipped on its side.

Susan's car was missing.

So was Dad's.

A neighbor's security camera showed two vehicles leaving separately before dawn. Susan's sedan left first. Dad's truck followed eleven minutes later.

That was good news.

Maybe.

At noon, the laboratory confirmed the blood belonged to Susan.

Tyler sat with his head between his hands.

“How much blood?”

“Not enough to assume a fatal injury,” Brooks said.

He looked up. “That's supposed to make me feel better?”

“No. It's supposed to keep you accurate.”

I understood why Brooks spoke that way. Emotion had ruled my family for years. Facts were almost rebellious.

The search of the safe produced another surprise.

One burner phone contained messages between Dad and someone saved only as DK.

Brooks did not show us everything, but one exchange was enough.

RICHARD: Girl has not surfaced. Need another way.

DK: Stop writing about it.

RICHARD: You said the old file was clean.

DK: It was until your mother started digging.

The message was dated six months earlier.

Another exchange, from three weeks ago:

RICHARD: M is dying. Once she's gone, I can close this.

DK: Do not involve me again.

Dad had replied:

Too late for that.

Brooks and Ortiz now had probable cause to investigate Sheriff Kerr.

They still did not know where Dad or Susan had gone.

Then Tyler remembered the hunting cabin.

It belonged to a company, not Dad, which was why it had not appeared in the first property search. Henderson Family Consulting leased a cabin near Blackwater Ridge every winter.

Dad used it when he wanted to “think.”

Police moved quickly.

The cabin was empty.

But Susan had been there.

Her blood was found on a bathroom towel. A first-aid kit lay open. One of her earrings was under the sink.

More importantly, the cabin's exterior camera had recorded her arrival.

She drove herself.

She was holding one hand against her forehead.

Seven minutes later, Dad's truck arrived.

The camera did not show what happened inside.

Forty minutes later, Dad left alone.

Susan never appeared on the recording again.

Tyler looked ready to break.

“Search the woods.”

“They are,” Brooks said.

“What if he killed her?”

“We don't know that.”

“What if he—”

My phone rang.

Unknown number.

Every person in the room looked at it.

Brooks gestured for silence and started recording.

I answered.

“Hello?”

Breathing.

Then Susan.

“Chloe?”

Tyler lunged toward the phone.

Brooks held up one hand.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“I can't tell you.”

“Are you hurt?”

“A little.”

“Dad?”

A long pause.

“He hit me at the lake house.”

Tyler's face twisted.

“He thought I took documents from the safe,” Susan continued. “I ran. I went to the cabin because I thought he wouldn't check there so fast. I was wrong.”

“Where are you now?”

“I got out through the back while he searched the road.”

Brooks mouthed: keep her talking.

“Why won't you tell us where you are?”

“Because I don't know who to trust.”

“You called me.”

“I trust that Richard wants you dead more than he wants me.”

The sentence made the air leave my lungs.

Tyler whispered, “Mom.”

Susan heard him.

“Oh God. Tyler?”

He moved closer.

“Mom, tell the police where you are.”

“I can't.”

“Why?”

“Because Richard isn't the only one.”

Brooks's eyes narrowed.

Susan's breathing became uneven.

“He had help when Claire died.”

I closed my eyes.

“Sheriff Kerr?”

Silence.

Then a whisper.

“Yes.”

Tyler stared at me.

Susan continued.

“I didn't know then. I found out years later.”

“How?”

“Richard got drunk after Martin disappeared. He said Daniel cleaned up one accident and could clean up another.”

Brooks wrote furiously.

“Did Richard cause Mom's crash?”

“I don't know exactly what happened. But Claire was trying to leave him. She had evidence in the car.”

My hands clenched.

“What evidence?”

“Original account records. A ledger. Maybe tapes.”

“We found copies.”

“No,” Susan said. “You don't understand. Claire had one thing Richard never found.”

“What?”

“A key.”

The word echoed through me.

“What key?”

“I don't know. Martin knew.”

Behind Susan's voice came a sound.

A door.

Then footsteps.

She stopped breathing.

“Susan?”

No answer.

A man's voice in the distance said something I could not understand.

Susan whispered, “He found me.”

The line went dead.

Tyler shouted her name into the phone.

Brooks was already calling the trace team.

Thirty seconds later, her phone rang back.

She listened.

Her face hardened.

“What?” Tyler demanded.

Brooks looked at us.

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“The call came from inside the county courthouse.”

And Sheriff Daniel Kerr's office was across the street.