Chapter 5 - THE SECOND DISAPPEARANCE
Grace ran outside barefoot.
The garden lights were still glowing from the wedding, illuminating crushed flowers and overturned chairs. Beyond the fence, an engine roared.
A black SUV accelerated toward the main road.
“Beatrice!” Grace screamed.
Robert reached the driveway seconds later, but the vehicle was already gone.
Katherine stood in the doorway, trembling.
“They found her again.”
Robert called the police.
Grace called Caleb.
He answered on the first ring.
“Mom?”
“Beatrice has been taken.”
There was a sharp silence.
“Who took her?”
“We don’t know. A black SUV. Someone entered through the kitchen.”
“I’m coming back.”
“No.”
Grace hated saying it, but she had to protect Katherine.
“You cannot return to this house unless she agrees.”
Katherine heard her.
After a moment, she said, “Let him come. Beatrice needs help.”
Grace relayed the message.
Caleb arrived twelve minutes later with a swollen lip and blood on his collar.
Robert stared at him.
“What happened?”
“Frank.”
Caleb placed a phone on the table.
“I found him at an abandoned gas station outside town. He was waiting for Victor’s men.”
“Did he take Beatrice?” Katherine asked.
“No. Frank was trying to run.”
Caleb had confronted his uncle about the recording. Frank first denied everything, then claimed Victor had forced him to participate.
“When I told him Beatrice was alive, he panicked,” Caleb said. “He said Victor would burn the entire county before allowing her to testify.”
Grace looked at her son’s injured face.
“Where is Frank now?”
“He escaped when two men arrived. I barely got away.”
The police entered the house and began taking statements. The lead detective, Sergeant Lena Ortiz, listened carefully but remained cautious.
“We need the SUV’s plate number.”
“The security cameras,” Robert said.
He opened the home surveillance system.
The kitchen camera had been disabled six minutes before Beatrice disappeared.
However, the driveway camera showed part of the SUV’s rear plate.
Ortiz enlarged the image.
Caleb recognized the number.
“That vehicle belongs to Hale Construction.”
The detective’s expression changed.
“Victor Hale’s company?”
“My company,” Caleb said bitterly. “Until today.”
He pulled out his employee identification card and broke it in half.
Ortiz made several calls. Road units began searching for the vehicle.
While officers moved through the house, Katherine sat alone at the dining-room table.
Grace approached carefully.
“May I sit?”
Katherine nodded.
Grace lowered herself into the chair beside her.
“I failed you.”
Katherine looked surprised.
“You didn’t know.”
“I knew my son was angry during the weeks before the wedding. I noticed him asking strange questions about your old job. I told myself he was nervous.”
“You could not have imagined this.”
“A mother sees what she wants to see.”
Grace’s voice shook.
“I raised Caleb to believe strength meant protecting people. Somewhere along the way, he began to believe pain gave him permission to cause pain.”
Katherine’s eyes filled.
“I loved him.”
“I know.”
“That is the worst part. Even when he locked the door, part of me kept waiting for him to laugh and tell me it was some terrible misunderstanding.”
Grace reached across the table but stopped before touching her.
Katherine noticed.
After a moment, she placed her own hand over Grace’s.
“I don’t blame you.”
Grace began to cry.
Across the room, Caleb watched them.
He did not interrupt.
Ortiz returned from the hallway.
“We found the SUV.”
Everyone stood.
“It was abandoned beside the old Dunmore access road.”
“Was Beatrice inside?” Caleb asked.
“No.”
Ortiz’s expression was grim.
“But we found blood on the back seat.”
Caleb moved toward the door.
“I’m going there.”
“You are not,” Ortiz said. “This is now an active kidnapping investigation.”
“You don’t understand what Victor is capable of.”
“And you do?”
Caleb’s answer came quietly.
“No. I thought I did.”
A patrol officer entered carrying a plastic evidence bag.
“We found this beneath the kitchen window.”
Inside was Beatrice’s yellow scarf.
A tiny object had been sewn into the hem.
Ortiz carefully removed it.
A tracking device.
Katherine leaned closer.
“That isn’t Victor’s.”
“How do you know?” Grace asked.
“Because Victor wanted Beatrice hidden. Whoever placed that tracker wanted her found.”
The device emitted a faint blinking light.
Ortiz connected it to a receiver.
A map appeared.
A moving signal traveled south along County Road 8.
“They didn’t find the tracker,” Ortiz said.
Caleb looked at Katherine.
“Beatrice left it behind deliberately.”
Katherine nodded.
“She wants us to follow the signal.”
Ortiz called for backup units.
The signal stopped near the abandoned Dunmore concrete plant—the same facility that had supplied materials for the collapsed overpass.
Before the police could leave, Grace’s phone rang.
Unknown caller.
She answered.
Frank’s voice came through in a whisper.
“Grace, listen to me. Victor has Beatrice at the plant.”
“Then tell the police everything.”
“I can’t.”
“You helped destroy that woman’s life!”
“I know.”
Frank began crying.
“I thought we were hiding a construction mistake. I didn’t know Victor planned to collapse the platform deliberately.”
Grace gripped the phone.
“Why would he destroy his own project?”
“To collect the insurance money and blame the subcontractor.”
Grace put the call on speaker.
Ortiz began recording.
Frank continued.
“Beatrice discovered the explosives. Katherine found the false calculations. Victor needed both women silenced.”
“Where are you?” Ortiz demanded.
Frank breathed heavily.
“I’m close to the plant.”
“Stay where you are.”
“I can’t. Victor has my daughter.”
Grace frowned.
“Your daughter?”
Frank’s voice cracked.
“You all believed my daughter died when she was a baby.”
The room went still.
“She didn’t.”
May you like
A gunshot exploded through the phone.
Then the call ended.
