Chapter 5: The Name That Changed Everything
I didn't sleep.
I sat at the kitchen table until four in the morning with my laptop and a cold cup of coffee and I searched every combination of that name I could think of.
Danny Crell.
Daniel Crell.
D.
Crell.
Crell, North Carolina.
Crell, Virginia.
At 2 a.m.
I found a small item in a local Asheville newspaper archive, dated September 2011.
A court record.
A man named Daniel Crell, age 29, had been charged with harassment and violation of a protective order.
The case had been continued twice and then the record went quiet.
No conviction listed.
No outcome I could find.
A protective order.
Someone had taken out a protective order against him.
I wrote the name of the paper down.
I wrote the case number down.
I sat back and looked at what I had.
A bag.
A photograph.
A note.
A letter.
A name.
A court record.
Rosie had been frightened of this man.
Frightened enough to warn Patrice.
Frightened enough to stay gone.
At seven in the morning I called the one person I still had a number for — a woman named Grace Ellery who had worked alongside Detective Pruitt as a junior investigator in the early years and who had, the last I heard, gone into private work.
She picked up on the third ring.
"Diane?" She sounded surprised.
"It's been a long time."
"I know.
I need help.
I found something."
I told her everything.
She listened without interrupting, which is one of the things I had always trusted about her.
When I finished she said, "Send me a photo of the letter and the photograph.
And the court record if you can pull it up again."
"Can you find him?
Danny Crell?"
"I can try.
Give me twenty-four hours."
She called back in eleven.
"He's not hard to find," she said.
"He's been in and out of trouble for years.
Small stuff mostly, but consistent.
He's currently living in a town called Kellerton, Virginia.
About forty minutes from the coast."
Virginia.
Near the water.
The same state where Carol had bought the bag.
"Grace," I said.
"Rosie was in Virginia.
The bag turned up in Virginia.
He's in Virginia."
A pause on the line.
"I know."
"Do you think she's still there?"
"I don't know.
But Diane — I need you to listen to me.
If this man frightened her badly enough that she stayed gone for sixteen years, you can't just drive down there and knock on his door.
If he knows you're looking, and if she's anywhere near him—"
"I understand."
"Do you?"
"Yes," I said.
"So what do we do?"
"Let me make some calls," Grace said.
"There's a way to do this that doesn't put her at risk.
But you have to give me a little time."
I gave her three days.
They were the longest three days of my life.
On the third evening she called again.
"I found a woman," Grace said.
"She lives in Kellerton.
She says she knows Rosie."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"Is Rosie alive?"
"She says yes."
I closed my eyes.
"She says Rosie has been in Kellerton for almost ten years.
She says she goes by a different name now." Grace paused.
"And she says Rosie doesn't know I've been asking about her.
May you like
She came to me because she's worried.
She says something has happened recently and she thinks Rosie may be in trouble."
