Chapter 8 - The Warehouse by the River

Owen didn't go alone. He sent the message to Detective Elena Collins, who had handled the original fire investigation but hadn't been lead on the arrest. She now worked property crimes. "You can be angry with me later," she said when she arrived with another officer. "First, we keep everyone alive."

They drove toward the river in separate cars. The warehouse in the photo belonged to a company with no sign on its fence. Its windows were painted white from the inside. A broken streetlight left one corner of the lot in darkness.

Owen waited behind the passenger seat of Collins's unmarked car while she and her partner approached. No courier appeared. After fifteen minutes, an alarm began sounding inside the building, thin and mechanical. The officers found an unlocked side door and entered.

A plastic storage bin stood beneath the alarm panel. Inside lay Ivy's wooden house, with its roof snapped off. The music mechanism had been pried loose. The base had been carved open.

"They got the card," Owen said.

Collins photographed everything before touching it. "Or they thought they did."

Back at the station, a technician examined the damaged base under a bright lamp. He removed the thin wooden panel and found a square of tape where a memory card had been fixed. The card was gone, but beneath it was a tiny penciled number: 0417.

"Looks like an access code," the technician said.

Owen knew it wasn't. April seventeenth was Rebecca's birthday, Ivy's mother's. Adam used it everywhere he needed to remember something without writing it down. "He knew they might break the box," Owen said quietly. "He left us another clue."

Collins studied him. "A clue to what?"

"I don't know yet."

His phone buzzed. Natalie.

He ignored the call. She sent a voice message: "Owen, please. My father has Dani looking for something. I can get you the memory card if you'll meet me where he can't see us. He doesn't know I kept the other copy."

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Then a second message arrived from her number, only ten seconds later.

DON'T TRUST THE FIRST MESSAGE. HE HAS MY PHONE.