Chapter 10 - Linda Comes Home Without WadeLinda Miller entered the Franklin Police Department wearing mud-stained trousers, a torn blouse, and no shoes.
She looked twenty years older than she had the morning Emma crawled out of the ground.
Sarah felt nothing for her.
No relief.
No pity.
Only rage.
Linda asked to see Daniel.
Sarah insisted on being present.
Ortiz allowed them to watch the interview through one-way glass.
Linda sat at a metal table with a paper cup of water between her hands.
A lawyer had already been called.
Before he arrived, Linda refused to discuss Emma.
She would talk only about immediate danger.
“Wade thinks Daniel has something.”
Ortiz sat across from her.
“What?”
“Robert's notebook.”
“We recovered it.”
Linda's eyes widened.
“From the yard?”
“Yes.”
Linda closed her eyes.
“That wasn't supposed to happen.”
Sarah whispered from behind the glass, “Nothing was supposed to happen except my daughter dying.”
Daniel said nothing.
Ortiz asked, “Why did you bury the box?”
“To hide it from Wade.”
“When?”
“Tuesday night.”
“With Emma present?”
Linda's jaw tightened.
“I want my lawyer.”
“You raised Daniel as your son for thirty-five years. If Wade intends to harm him tonight, this would be a good time to stop protecting yourself.”
Linda looked toward the mirrored glass.
As if she could see him.
“Daniel shouldn't have found that notebook.”
“Why?”
“Because of the missing page.”
“What was on it?”
Linda's hands began trembling.
“Proof.”
“Of your affair?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Linda whispered, “Of Wade's first murder.”
Sarah felt Daniel move beside her.
Ortiz leaned forward.
“Who did Wade kill?”
Linda stared at the water.
“Robert.”
Daniel left the observation room.
Sarah followed.
He walked halfway down the corridor before stopping.
“My dad had a heart attack.”
Sarah didn't answer.
“He was fifty-six.”
“I know.”
“He had heart problems.”
“I know.”
Daniel pressed both hands against his head.
“What is happening?”
Sarah touched his arm.
He pulled her close.
For the first time since Emma had been found, they held each other without anger between them.
Only horror.
Ortiz emerged several minutes later.
“Linda's attorney is here.”
“What else did she say?”
“Wade allegedly paid someone to alter medication your father was taking.”
Daniel went pale.
“Can that be proven?”
“Maybe not after this long.”
“The missing page?”
“Robert apparently documented Wade threatening him two days before his death.”
“Where is it?”
“Linda says Wade has it.”
Sarah frowned.
“Then why does Wade need the notebook?”
“Because Robert hid something in it.”
“What?”
“A bank-account key.”
The notebook contained a sequence of handwritten numbers disguised among construction measurements.
Robert had apparently created an account decades earlier where he stored copies of evidence against Wade.
Digital files had later been moved to a secure archive.
Linda believed the password was encoded inside the notebook.
“Does Wade know how to decode it?”
“No.”
“Daniel does?”
Linda claimed Robert had taught Daniel a number game as a child.
Daniel stared.
“A number game?”
“Your dad used to make you solve construction measurements.”
Daniel remembered.
Robert would write strings of dimensions and ask young Daniel to identify which numbers couldn't belong to a real structure.
A game.
Or perhaps training.
“If Wade thinks I can decode it, why doesn't he just ask?”
Ortiz looked at him.
“He may.”
Linda's lawyer eventually allowed a limited statement.
Linda admitted the affair.
Admitted financial fraud.
Admitted shaving Emma's hair.
Admitted helping transport her to the cabin.
But when asked about the burial, she denied placing Emma in the ground.
Sarah exploded.
She entered the interview room before anyone could stop her.
“You liar.”
Linda stood.
“Sarah—”
“Emma watched you put dirt on her.”
Linda's face collapsed.
“No.”
“She remembers.”
“No, she doesn't.”
Sarah crossed the room.
Ortiz stepped between them.
“She remembers begging you.”
Linda began crying.
“I didn't bury her.”
“You helped.”
“I was there.”
“That is helping.”
“Wade made me—”
“You had thirty-six hours to choose her.”
Linda looked at Sarah.
“I tried.”
“When?”
“I switched the drives.”
Sarah stopped.
Linda wiped her face.
“The drive Wade wanted contained records that could send him away forever.”
“And Emma's video?”
“I kept it.”
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
Of course.
Not to save Emma.
To save herself.
Sarah's disgust deepened.
Linda continued.
“When Wade decided Emma couldn't go home, I tried to bargain. I gave him the financial drive.”
“Then why did he still take her?”
“Because he realized Emma had heard too much.”
Linda looked toward Daniel.
“And because he knew I'd finally turned against him.”
“You stood there while he put her in the dirt.”
“I thought he was hiding her.”
Sarah stared.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“He said someone was coming.”
“Who?”
Linda hesitated.
“The person he'd been paying inside Daniel's company.”
Daniel's expression changed.
There was still an accomplice.
“Who?”
“I never knew the name.”
“Convenient,” Sarah said.
Linda turned to her son.
“Danny, please.”
“Don't call me that.”
She flinched.
“You need to listen. Wade thinks the notebook will lead him to money he hid years ago.”
“How much?”
“Enough to disappear.”
Daniel stared at her.
“And he plans to take me where?”
Linda looked at Ortiz.
“Old Bennett Quarry.”
“Why tonight?”
“Because that's where Robert hid the first copy of his evidence.”
Sarah frowned.
“Then why hasn't Wade already searched it?”
Linda whispered, “Because the entrance is sealed.”
Daniel slowly understood.
“And my father taught me how to open it.”
Linda nodded.
Behind them, Ortiz's phone rang.
An officer from Emma's hospital floor.
Ortiz listened.
Then her face changed.
“Repeat that.”
Sarah's blood went cold.
“What happened?”
Ortiz ended the call.
“Emma is safe.”
Sarah exhaled.
“But someone left something outside her room.”
“What?”
“A blue rain boot.”
Linda went completely still.
Ortiz stared at her.
“Your blue rain boot.”
Inside it was a note.
May you like
One sentence.
MIDNIGHT. BRING DANIEL AND THE NOTEBOOK, OR NEXT TIME THE GIRL STAYS BURIED.
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