Chapter 6: The Search
I didn't watch from my window.
I sat in Karen's kitchen two doors down and drank tea I couldn't taste while Karen kept the radio on low and neither of us said much.
At 11:40 a.m., my phone rang.
It was Reyes.
"We found a second phone," she said.
"Registered to Linda Carver."
"And?"
"It contains a call log.
Fourteen calls to Gary Pelton's number in the seventy-two hours after Daniel Marsh was last seen." A pause.
"And one call made the night Daniel sent that text."
"She called Pelton the same night Daniel threatened to go to the police."
"Yes."
Karen was watching me from across the table.
I put the phone on speaker.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"Linda Carver is being brought in for formal questioning.
She has counsel present.
I can't share more than that right now."
"Is she being charged?"
"That's not something I can discuss at this stage."
I understood.
"Okay."
"Ms.
Denton — I want you to know that the work you did, coming in, bringing the paperwork, the screenshots — it mattered.
You gave us a thread we didn't have."
"I didn't do anything special.
I just didn't throw things away."
"Most people do," she said.
"Most people throw everything away."
After she hung up, Karen poured more tea into my cup even though it was still half full.
"She knew," Karen said.
"All this time.
Living right next door to you."
"She knew the car was there.
She knew what it meant." I wrapped both hands around the mug.
"Every time she looked out her window."
"And she fought you over a parking space."
"She needed a reason to be near it.
A reason that looked normal." I shook my head.
"When I had her SUV towed, she panicked.
She couldn't think of another way."
Karen was quiet for a moment.
"What do you think happened to Daniel?"
I didn't answer.
I didn't want to say it out loud.
But we both already knew.
At 2:15 that afternoon, I drove to the other side of town.
I had called ahead.
Ruth Marsh lived in a small yellow house with a bird feeder by the front step.
She opened the door before I reached the porch.
She was smaller than I had imagined.
White-haired, careful on her feet, with the kind of eyes that had been waiting a long time.
"You didn't have to come," she said.
"I wanted to."
She stepped back to let me in.
We sat at her kitchen table.
She had made coffee.
There was a framed photograph on the windowsill — a young man with her same eyes, standing in front of a white SUV, squinting into the sun.
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
"They found something," I said finally.
"I can't tell you everything — the detective will do that properly.
But I want you to know they found something that matters.
Something that points to who was involved."
Ruth looked at the photograph.
"Is my son coming home?" she asked.
Her voice was steady.
She had asked this question before, in other rooms, to other people.
She already knew how to hold it.
"I don't know," I said honestly.
"But they're not going to stop looking.
Not anymore."
She nodded once.
Slowly.
"He texted me that night," she said.
"The night before he disappeared.
He said he'd found out something bad and he was going to make it right." She paused.
"That was Daniel.
He always wanted to make things right."
I didn't trust my voice.
So I just reached across the table and covered her hand with mine.
She didn't pull away.
May you like
Outside, the bird feeder swayed in a small wind.
We sat there together until the coffee went cold.
