Chapter 5: Uncle Honest
I grabbed my phone, my keys, and the USB drive.
Diane took the photograph and the letter.
She didn't ask questions.
Whatever Teresa had told her about how to behave if things moved quickly, it had taken hold.
She was on her feet and at the back door before I'd finished pushing the USB drive into my coat pocket.
We went out through the garden, through the gate at the back fence that opened onto the alley.
I hadn't used that gate in years.
The latch was stiff.
I forced it.
"Where are we going?" Diane asked.
"My brother-in-law's office.
It's four miles.
We're not taking my car."
"Why not?"
"Because if they know this address, they may know my car."
We walked.
Diane kept pace without complaint.
The dress drew a few glances on the street — a woman in a pale blue prom gown on a Thursday afternoon — but no one stopped us.
I kept my eyes moving.
The blue sedan did not appear behind us.
Frank's office was on the third floor of a building near the courthouse.
He'd kept the office after retirement because, as he put it, he thought better with a desk.
His assistant, a young man named Patrick, looked up when we came through the door and started to say that Frank was on a call.
"Tell him it's Ruth," I said.
"Tell him it's urgent."
Patrick looked at Diane and the dress.
He picked up the phone.
Frank came out of his office thirty seconds later.
He took one look at my face and said, "Patrick, hold everything."
He closed the office door behind us.
"Sit down, Ruth."
"I can't sit."
"Then stand." He looked at Diane.
"Who is this?"
"Her name is Diane.
She's Teresa's —" My voice broke on the name.
First time it had broken since the doorbell rang.
I pressed my hand against my mouth for a moment.
"She's Teresa's sister.
Not mine.
A woman Teresa has been living with.
Near.
I don't know exactly."
Frank went very still.
"Ruth."
"Teresa is alive, Frank.
She's been alive for twenty years.
There's a man named Roy Callahan — his son Marcus was in the car.
Marcus was driving drunk.
Roy pulled Teresa out of the water before the rescue teams arrived and threatened her into disappearing." I pulled the USB drive from my pocket and set it on his desk.
"Teresa has been collecting evidence.
It's on this."
Frank looked at the drive.
He didn't touch it yet.
"Roy Callahan," he said slowly.
"Construction.
Donates to the county sheriff's re-election every cycle."
"You know him."
"I know of him.
I prosecuted one of his subcontractors twelve years ago.
Roy was never charged but he was in the room for several conversations I found interesting." Frank picked up the drive.
"How long ago was this letter written?"
"Eight months ago."
"And Teresa's location now?"
"Unknown.
She moves."
Frank sat down.
He turned the drive over in his hand once, twice.
"If what you're telling me is accurate, and I'm not saying it isn't, we're dealing with obstruction, false testimony at a legal inquest, twenty years of witness intimidation, and potentially more depending on what's on this drive." He looked up.
"And you said someone may have followed Diane here."
"There was a car outside my house.
I don't know if it followed us."
"Assume it did." He set the drive down and reached for his phone.
"I'm going to call someone I trust at the federal level.
Not local.
Not county.
Federal." He paused with the phone in his hand.
"Ruth.
Are you certain about the handwriting?
The letter?"
"I'm certain," I said.
"I'd know her handwriting in the dark."
He nodded once and dialed.
While he spoke in low, careful sentences to whoever answered, I sat down across from Diane.
She was holding the photograph in her lap, looking at it.
"How long have you known?" I asked her.
"How long have you known everything?"
"About two years," she said.
"Since she told me the full story."
"And you never went to the police yourself?"
"She begged me not to.
She was terrified." Diane looked up.
"You have to understand — she's spent twenty years being terrified.
It becomes the whole shape of your life."
I thought about that.
Twenty years of Teresa waking up somewhere that wasn't home.
Twenty years of Teresa looking over her shoulder.
Twenty years of Teresa watching a blue sedan park outside a house she couldn't walk to.
Frank lowered the phone.
"Someone is coming here.
Tonight.
She's someone I'd trust with my own life." He looked at me steadily.
"In the meantime, neither of you goes home."
I nodded.
"There's one more thing," Diane said.
We both looked at her.
She reached into her bag a final time and set a second envelope on Frank's desk.
Smaller than the first.
Sealed.
"Teresa gave me this too," she said.
"She told me to give it only to you." She looked at me.
"She said you'd know when to open it."
My name was on the front.
Again.
Teresa's handwriting.
Again.
But underneath my name, in smaller letters, she had written four words:
*Only if I'm gone.*
The room went very quiet.
May you like
Frank set his phone face-down on the desk.
"We need to move faster," he said.
