Chapter 8 - Inside the Cottage
Anna could not stop staring at the photographs.
Someone had been inside.
Close enough to hear Leo breathe.
Mara sealed the attic as a crime scene.
Richard wanted to move them to a hotel under private security. Mara chose a safer option: a police-owned witness apartment used in sensitive cases.
No staff.
No family.
No address Vanessa could know.
On the way there, Leo slept against Anna’s shoulder.
Richard sat across from them in the armored SUV.
“I should have seen this sooner.”
Anna looked at him. “Seen what?”
“My sister.”
“You saw the version she wanted you to see.”
“That’s an excuse.”
“No. It’s an explanation. There’s a difference.”
Richard looked at Leo.
“I left him with her.”
“And you hired me.”
He met Anna’s eyes.
“You saved him.”
“Then listen to me now.”
“I am.”
“Stop blaming yourself long enough to help us finish this.”
He nodded.
At the witness apartment, Owen called with a breakthrough.
The burner phone from the attic contained one saved number.
Graham Voss.
The call log showed three calls made from the cottage attic.
One happened while Anna was downstairs making Leo breakfast.
Mara obtained an emergency location order.
Graham’s phone appeared at a private airfield twenty miles away.
Police raced there.
They found his car, passport, luggage—and no Graham.
The airport camera showed him entering a hangar with Vanessa.
They never came out.
“There’s another exit?” Richard asked.
Mara shook her head. “There shouldn’t be.”
Then Owen zoomed in on the footage.
A service van entered the hangar twelve minutes later.
It left with two workers in front.
And a shape moving behind the tinted rear glass.
Mara put out an alert for the van.
Meanwhile, Anna tried to keep Leo’s day normal.
Snack. Blocks. Bath.
At bedtime, he refused to sleep unless the hallway light stayed on.
“Stairs bad,” he whispered.
Anna’s heart cracked.
“No stairs here, buddy.”
He touched the bruise on his knee.
“Aunt Ness mad.”
“What was she mad about?”
Leo frowned, searching for toddler words.
“Mommy box.”
Anna froze.
“What mommy box?”
Leo pointed toward Richard’s bag.
“Daddy box.”
Richard opened the bag.
Inside was Claire’s letter, copied evidence, his laptop, and a small silver key from the storage unit.
Leo reached for the key.
“Mommy blue box.”
Richard looked at Anna.
“There was no blue box in the storage unit.”
Anna whispered, “Maybe there was somewhere else.”
Then Richard remembered.
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Claire had kept a blue jewelry box in the mansion safe.
A box nobody had opened since her funeral.
