Chapter 4 - The Cabin at Silver Creek
By noon, the story I had believed about Taylor’s childhood had begun collapsing piece by piece.
Taylor had always described her father, Thomas Grant, as distant but kind.
He worked construction.
He drank too much after Emily died.
Three years later, according to Taylor, he lost control of his truck on an icy mountain road and went over an embankment.
That version had apparently been simplified.
Thomas Grant’s crash occurred three days after he contacted police about Evelyn’s missing Explorer.
And one day after he told a coworker he believed something terrible had happened inside his own house.
Detective Collins called me from the road.
“We located the original crash report.”
“Anything unusual?”
“A lot.”
My stomach tightened.
“Like what?”
“The investigating officer was Evelyn’s brother.”
I stared out the hospital window.
“Her brother was a cop?”
“Deputy.”
“Was?”
“He retired fourteen years ago.”
“Name?”
“Gordon Foster.”
Foster.
The same last name as Diane Foster, the notary.
“The whole family was involved.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to.”
Collins continued.
“Thomas’s blood alcohol level was recorded as .19.”
“Was he drinking?”
“We’re checking.”
“The problem is the hospital lab that supposedly ran the toxicology test has no surviving record of it.”
“Because it was twenty-seven years ago?”
“Possibly.”
“But the report contains another oddity.”
“What?”
“The crash happened at 4:20 p.m.”
“The report claims Gordon arrived at 4:37.”
“That’s fast.”
“Very.”
“Especially because dispatch logs place him twenty-eight miles away at 4:31.”
I closed my eyes.
“So he lied.”
“Someone did.”
“Was Thomas alive when they found him?”
Another pause.
“According to the report, yes.”
That surprised me.
“He survived the crash?”
“For almost an hour.”
“Did he say anything?”
“The report says no.”
“But?”
“A paramedic wrote a separate note.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“What did it say?”
“Patient repeatedly attempted to say the word ‘girls.’”
I looked toward Lily.
She was coloring with a nurse.
“Girls.”
“Yes.”
“Sarah, Taylor, and Emily.”
“That’s one possibility.”
“And Evelyn?”
“We’re still trying to locate her.”
“What about Gordon?”
“Someone is on the way to his house.”
The call ended.
I sat beside Lily again.
She had drawn three stick figures.
One was me.
One was her.
The third was Taylor.
No grandmother.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Mommy in trouble?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you mad at her?”
The question hurt.
“I’m scared for her.”
Lily colored quietly.
“Grandma says Mommy makes bad choices.”
“What kind of choices?”
“Choosing you.”
I looked at my daughter.
“What?”
“Grandma said Mommy should have never married you.”
“Why?”
“She said you made Mommy remember.”
“Remember what?”
Lily shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
That sentence stayed with me.
You made Mommy remember.
Maybe our marriage had not simply fallen apart because of money or stress.
Maybe something older had been pushing against it from the beginning.
At 1:18 p.m., Andrea arrived at the hospital.
She placed a thick folder beside me.
“We have an emergency hearing at four.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“Taylor’s attorney is requesting immediate enforcement of the custody order.”
“Is Taylor even talking to her attorney?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then who is?”
Andrea’s expression told me she had the same suspicion.
“Her attorney, Philip Crane, says Taylor contacted him by email.”
“Can he prove it was her?”
“Not yet.”
“Tell the judge she’s missing.”
“We will.”
“Tell the judge about Lily.”
“Obviously.”
“Tell the judge about Evelyn.”
“Yes.”
I rubbed my face.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“I feel like everyone keeps talking about documents while my ex-wife is being chased across Colorado by her insane mother.”
Andrea opened the folder.
“That may be exactly what these documents were designed to accomplish.”
She showed me an email.
It appeared to come from Taylor.
The timestamp was 11:52 p.m.
That was after I had found Lily.
The email instructed Crane to proceed aggressively against me.
But at 11:52, Taylor had been calling me from an unknown phone and warning me not to return to the house.
“Someone used her account.”
“Likely.”
“Can we prove it?”
“Detectives are requesting the login records.”
My phone rang.
Collins.
Her voice sounded different.
“Ryan.”
“What happened?”
“We reached the cabin.”
I stood.
“And?”
“No Evelyn.”
“Taylor?”
“No.”
“Then what did you find?”
“Evidence someone has been here recently.”
“How recently?”
“Hours.”
My chest tightened.
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
“There’s blood.”
I stopped breathing.
“How much?”
“Not enough to assume the worst.”
“Whose?”
“Lab will tell us.”
“And there’s another room.”
I almost laughed at the absurd horror of it.
“Another hidden room?”
“This one isn’t hidden.”
“It’s locked.”
“What’s inside?”
“We forced it open.”
Collins went quiet.
“Ryan, there are names written across the walls.”
“What names?”
“Children.”
My skin prickled.
“How many?”
“At least twelve.”
“Lily?”
“Yes.”
“Taylor?”
“Yes.”
“Emily?”
“Yes.”
“Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“And several we don’t recognize.”
I sank into a chair.
“What does it mean?”
“We don’t know.”
“Was Evelyn hurting other children?”
“We’re investigating.”
Then Collins said something that made the room feel cold.
“Each name has a number beside it.”
I thought of Lily.
“What numbers?”
“Temperatures.”
I closed my eyes.
“No.”
“Ryan.”
“No.”
“Taylor’s name says 39.”
“Emily says 36.”
“Sarah says 41.”
“What does Lily say?”
Collins hesitated.
“32.”
Thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit.
Freezing.
I stared at my daughter.
She was humming while she colored.
She had no idea her name had been written on a wall two hours away beside the freezing point of water.
“What kind of monster does that?”
Collins didn’t answer.
Maybe there was no answer.
“What else?”
“We found old cassette tapes.”
“The tapes Taylor mentioned?”
“Possibly.”
“Can you play them?”
“We did.”
My heart started pounding.
“And?”
“One appears to contain Evelyn questioning a child.”
“Which child?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“What does she ask?”
Collins read from her notes.
“Did the cold make you understand?”
My stomach turned.
“What does the child say?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
I shut my eyes.
Taylor.
Or Sarah.
Or Emily.
Then Collins continued.
“The woman asks, ‘What happens when girls tell lies?’”
“The child answers, ‘Girls disappear.’”
I had to stand and walk away from Lily so she wouldn’t see my face.
“Is there more?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A man interrupts the recording.”
“Who?”
“We think Thomas.”
“What does he say?”
Collins paused.
“He says, ‘Evelyn, get her out of there before you kill her.’”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“And Evelyn?”
“She says, ‘Then stop me.’”
Silence filled the line.
I thought of Thomas’s fatal crash.
I thought of the Explorer.
The missing report.
Gordon Foster.
Everything was beginning to connect.
Then Collins said,
“We found tire tracks behind the cabin.”
“Fresh?”
“Yes.”
“They lead to an old logging road.”
“Where does it go?”
“Toward an abandoned quarry.”
“Are you following them?”
“Units are moving now.”
I looked at the clock.
My hearing was less than three hours away.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“I’m done sitting here.”
“And Lily needs you.”
“She has hospital security.”
“She has you.”
That stopped me.
Collins continued.
“You spent years with Evelyn.”
“Think.”
“Did she ever mention the quarry?”
I searched my memory.
Birthday dinners.
Christmases.
Passive-aggressive comments.
Trips.
Old stories.
Then I remembered something.
A cabin conversation years earlier.
Evelyn had been drinking wine.
Taylor had left the room.
Evelyn told me that when Taylor was little, she used to take the girls to a place where they could “learn to be quiet.”
At the time, I thought she meant a church retreat.
“What?”
Collins asked.
“There was a place.”
“Evelyn called it the quiet place.”
Collins repeated the words.
“The quiet place.”
“Does that mean anything?”
I heard typing.
Then another voice beside Collins.
A deputy.
A pause.
Collins came back.
“There’s an old refrigerated storage facility near the quarry.”
My blood turned cold.
“What kind?”
“A former meat-processing warehouse.”
“Closed since 2004.”
I looked at Lily.
“Go.”
“We are.”
The next ninety minutes were unbearable.
I attended the custody hearing by video from a hospital conference room.
Taylor’s attorney appeared confused when Andrea presented police reports, hospital records, and evidence that Taylor was missing.
The judge immediately suspended the prior custody order.
Temporary emergency custody was granted to me.
I barely heard the legal language.
My phone sat on the table.
I was waiting for Collins.
At 4:47 p.m., she finally called.
I answered before the first ring finished.
“Did you find her?”
“We found Taylor.”
My knees weakened.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“Thank God.”
“Is she hurt?”
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
“She’s conscious.”
“They’re transporting her.”
“What about Evelyn?”
“Gone.”
Of course.
“What happened?”
“We found Taylor locked inside one of the old cold-storage rooms.”
I stared at the wall.
“Like Lily.”
“Yes.”
“Was she freezing?”
“The unit wasn’t operational.”
“But she had been restrained.”
“She says Evelyn brought her there.”
“Did she escape?”
“No.”
“We found her.”
“Why did Evelyn leave?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where is she?”
“We’re searching.”
Then Collins lowered her voice.
“Taylor keeps asking about Sarah.”
“Does she know where she is?”
“She says Sarah contacted her six months ago.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“What?”
“They’ve been communicating secretly.”
“Why secretly?”
“Taylor says Sarah warned her that Evelyn had been looking for her for years.”
“What does Evelyn want from Sarah?”
Collins paused.
“She believes Sarah has proof of what happened to Emily.”
“What proof?”
“Thomas gave Sarah something the night Emily died.”
I thought of the missing box behind the furnace.
“The files?”
“No.”
“What?”
“A videotape.”
My breath caught.
“What’s on it?”
“Taylor doesn’t know.”
“But Sarah apparently does.”
“And according to Taylor, it shows Evelyn on the lake the night Emily died.”
I stared through the conference-room window at the darkening Colorado sky.
“Where is Sarah?”
“We don’t know.”
Collins was silent for a moment.
Then she said,
“But someone does.”
“Who?”
“Gordon Foster.”
Evelyn’s retired deputy brother.
“Did you find him?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Dead in his house.”
The room went silent.
“How?”
“We’re still determining that.”
Then Collins added the detail that changed the entire direction of the investigation.
“His front door was locked from the inside.”
“His wallet was untouched.”
“Nothing appears stolen.”
“Except one thing.”
“What?”
“An address book.”
“What was in it?”
“We don’t know.”
“It’s missing.”
“And on Gordon’s kitchen table, someone left a photograph.”
Another photograph.
“What photograph?”
“A recent picture of Sarah.”
My heart pounded.
May you like
On the back, written in fresh black ink, were five words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED GONE.
