Chapter 5 - The Man by the Bridge
The dead man had been hidden behind a false wall.
His remains were old.
Very old.
By sunrise, a forensic anthropologist estimated he had been there between eight and ten years.
Exactly the window Lauren feared.
Detective Nolan returned to the hospital just after six in the morning with a photograph sealed inside a plastic sleeve.
She placed it on the table beside Lauren.
“This man disappeared nine years ago.”
Lauren looked at the face.
Mid-forties. Brown hair. Heavy jaw. Construction clothes.
“I don’t know him.”
“His name was Anthony Ruiz. He worked for Daniel’s company.”
Emily flinched.
“The man by the bridge,” she whispered.
Nolan nodded. “Ruiz disappeared three days before Hannah vanished.”
Lauren felt anger rise like heat under her skin.
“And nobody connected them?”
“Daniel told police Ruiz stole cash and left town. There was no body. No vehicle. No witness willing to contradict him.”
“Hannah was the witness.”
“That’s what we think.”
Lauren looked down at the photograph again.
Daniel had not just known something about Hannah.
He had been protecting himself from a murder investigation.
“Where is Hannah now?”
“We’re searching.”
“You had a house full of police.”
“The hidden room had a second exit through an old storm tunnel. We found fresh blood along the floor and tire tracks behind the property.”
Emily sat up too quickly.
“Daniel took her.”
“Daniel was arrested at your grandparents’ house before officers entered his basement.”
Emily stared.
“Then who moved Hannah?”
That question followed Lauren to the sheriff’s office.
Michael sat in an interview room with clean clothes borrowed from an officer and dried blood still trapped beneath his fingernails.
Lauren watched through the glass while Nolan questioned him.
“You knew Ruiz was dead,” Nolan said.
Michael stared at the table.
“Yes.”
Lauren shut her eyes.
Nolan continued. “Tell me how.”
“Nine years ago Daniel called me after midnight. He was drunk. Panicking. He said there had been an accident.”
“What accident?”
“He hit Ruiz with his truck near Mill Creek Bridge.”
“And you helped him hide the body.”
Michael’s jaw tightened.
“I helped move the truck.”
“Where?”
“Into the quarry lake.”
“And the body?”
“Daniel said he handled it.”
“You believed him?”
“I didn’t want to know.”
Nolan leaned forward.
“That sentence destroyed nine years of lives.”
Michael’s eyes filled with tears.
“I know.”
“What about Hannah?”
Michael’s voice became barely audible.
“She saw us.”
Lauren pressed a hand against the glass.
Nolan said, “At the quarry?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I begged her not to go to the police until I could convince Daniel to confess.”
“And did he?”
“No.”
“What happened when Hannah met you the night she vanished?”
Michael looked up.
“I never got there.”
Lauren frowned.
Nolan did too.
“Why?”
“Daniel called me first. He said Hannah was with him.”
A long silence.
Then Michael whispered, “He told me if I came near his house, he’d kill her.”
Lauren’s breath caught.
“And you stayed away?” Nolan asked.
Michael closed his eyes.
“For nine years.”
Then the interview-room door opened.
An officer stepped inside and handed Nolan a note.
She read it once.
Then again.
“What?” Michael asked.
Nolan looked at him.
“We found traffic-camera footage from last night.”
She turned toward the glass where Lauren stood.
“A vehicle left Daniel’s property twelve minutes before police arrived.”
Michael stood.
“What vehicle?”
Nolan answered.
May you like
“Your mother’s.”
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