Chapter 11 - Follow the Water
By noon, state investigators had obtained access to the drainage easement. I stood behind the barriers with Naomi while technicians lowered cameras into an old concrete access tunnel behind Sarah's property.
No one would tell me to go home. Perhaps they saw I couldn't.
The tunnel connected the neighborhood runoff system to a maintenance vault beneath an unused pump station. Jason had renovated the pool two summers earlier. I remembered Sarah complaining that the project had dragged on for months and cost twice what he'd promised.
“He built himself a back door,” Naomi murmured.
A technician called out from the access point. They had found fresh footprints and a chain fastened to an interior gate.
Then came a second shout.
“Someone's inside!”
I took a step forward and Ruiz caught my arm. “Let the rescue team work.”
Minutes crawled by. An ambulance rolled closer. A woman emerged on a stretcher beneath a gray blanket, her face pale and her dark hair tangled.
“Sarah!”
Her eyes turned toward my voice.
“Ben?” she whispered.
I gripped her hand. “Emily's safe. She's with me.”
Sarah cried without making a sound. “I thought he'd take her away.”
“You're coming with us.”
She shook her head fiercely. “Noah. Did you find Noah?”
“Not yet.”
“Jason moved him yesterday. Nicole knows where.”
Paramedics lifted her toward the ambulance. Ruiz leaned close to listen.
“Jason kept me here because I found the accounts,” Sarah said. “He used my identity to open them. The money isn't mine.”
“Can you identify where he moved Noah?”
Sarah closed her eyes. “He said the boy was a loose end. He said he'd drive him north.”
A paramedic asked us to give her room. As the doors closed, Sarah grabbed my sleeve one final time.
“Ben. Jason didn't start this by himself.”
“I know about Brice.”
She shook her head.
May you like
“No. Someone at the family court gave him our schedule. Someone knew every time Emily was alone.”
THE THINGS BENEATH THE WATER • 20 CHAPTERS
