Chapter 4 - Grandma Ruth's Secret
Grandma Ruth had found me.
Not physically.
Not at first.
But she had traced my bus ticket through someone she knew at the station and learned I had reached Columbus.
She never told my parents.
Instead, she sent money anonymously through a church outreach program.
Twenty dollars.
Thirty dollars.
Sometimes fifty.
Enough to eat.
Enough to keep moving.
I had believed strangers were helping me.
It had been Grandma.
The metal box contained copies of Caleb's disciplinary records, photographs of broken doors, threatening notes and handwritten accounts of incidents my parents had concealed.
Grandma had been building a record.
Then investigators found a recent note.
It wasn't hers.
It belonged to Elise.
If anything happens to me, Caleb knows I found these.
Elise had discovered Grandma Ruth's evidence.
Which meant she had been at the farm before disappearing.
Police searched the property again.
A tracking dog led them toward an abandoned hunting cabin.
The door had been locked from outside.
Inside were food wrappers, a blanket, a broken chair and a small amount of blood.
Elise wasn't there.
But someone had scratched four letters into the wooden wall.
MARA.
Detective Ortiz showed me the photograph.
“She knew about you.”
“How?”
“We think she found Ruth's records.”
A map discovered inside the cabin pointed toward an abandoned quarry.
Police searched it.
Behind an old maintenance building was a rented storage unit.
Inside were hard drives, photographs and boxes of documents.
Caleb had been keeping records.
Insurance.
Leverage.
Secrets.
One hard drive contained a video.
Elise appeared on screen.
Alive.
Terrified.
“If you're watching this, Caleb knows I found everything.”
She looked directly into the camera.
“Mara, I hope this reaches you.”
My breath caught.
“Your parents didn't just protect Caleb from what he did to you.”
Footsteps sounded behind her.
Elise turned.
A man's voice entered the recording.
My father's.
“Caleb, put that down.”
The video ended.
And suddenly my father wasn't simply the man who had protected Caleb twelve years ago.
May you like
He had been there when Elise was in danger.
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