Chapter 15 - The Leak
Detective Brooks looked furious when Ethan told her what the reporter had asked.
Only six people knew the murder theory in detail.
Brooks. Ethan. Claire. Robert. Rachel. And Assistant District Attorney Mark Keene.
Keene had joined the case that morning.
"Nobody talks to the press," Brooks told the team. "Nobody."
But by evening, another confidential detail appeared online: the existence of Noah's audio recording.
Margaret's attorney filed a motion claiming the recording had been fabricated.
Someone was feeding her defense in real time.
Brooks began an internal review.
Ethan trusted almost no one.
Then Claire remembered something.
"The officer at the first hotel," she said. "The one who left because of the fake fight downstairs. Who called him?"
Brooks checked dispatch records.
The call had not come through dispatch.
The officer had received a direct text from a supervisor.
That supervisor reported to Captain Alan Voss.
Voss had been a young state trooper twelve years earlier.
He was also the first officer at Noah's crash.
Brooks went very still.
"Voss signed the original report."
They pulled the archived file again.
The witness statement about the dark SUV was in the file now, but Brooks noticed the page numbering jumped from 7 to 9.
Page 8 was missing.
A retired clerk remembered the case.
She told Brooks that the original report included a roadside photograph showing tire marks from a second vehicle.
The photograph had vanished before the case was closed.
"Who had access?" Ethan asked.
Brooks answered, "Voss."
That night, police obtained a search warrant for Voss's home.
They found sixty thousand dollars in cash hidden behind a furnace panel and an old photograph of Margaret, Robert, and Voss at a charity banquet.
But Voss himself was gone.
So was Margaret.
Her electronic ankle monitor had been cut off and left in a grocery-store bathroom.
At 11:23 p.m., Ethan's phone rang from an unknown number.
He answered.
Margaret's voice was calm.
"Bring Noah's recording to the old church by midnight. Come alone."
Ethan's blood chilled.
Then Lily cried in the background.
May you like
Not from the room behind him.
From Margaret's phone.
