Chapter 5 - The Apartment in Nashville
“Go to the bedroom window,” I said.
“Mara—”
“Now.”
Hale was already turning the car south.
Nashville was hours away.
We could not reach her.
Skylar ran.
I heard her breathing, drawers opening, something falling.
“My window is four floors up.”
“Fire escape?”
“No.”
“Balcony?”
“Yes.”
“Go.”
The apartment door opened.
A man called her name.
Robert Vance.
Gentle.
Almost fatherly.
“Skylar?”
She stepped onto the balcony.
“I’m outside.”
“Lock the balcony door.”
“I did.”
“Call 911 from another phone if you can.”
“My neighbor.”
“Get their attention.”
The line suddenly went quiet.
“Skylar?”
Nothing.
Then the call disconnected.
I called back.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
I called Nashville police, gave the address, reported an unlawful entry and potential threat.
Then I stared at Hale.
“Drive faster.”
“We’ll get stopped.”
“Then don’t.”
Four hours became three and a half.
I used the drive to read everything we had photographed from unit 217 before escaping.
Hale contacted a trusted investigator he knew outside Briar County.
I called Skylar twenty-three times.
Nothing.
At 3:12 a.m., Nashville police called me.
Officers had entered the apartment.
No one was there.
No signs of assault.
No body.
No Skylar.
Her balcony door was unlocked.
Her phone lay on the living room rug.
Vance was gone.
By sunrise I stood outside the apartment building.
A detective named Alicia Grant met us upstairs.
She was forty-something, direct, skeptical, and immediately unhappy that a county commissioner from three hours away was involved.
“You’re saying Robert Vance entered with a key?”
“My sister said his name.”
“Any recording?”
“My phone recorded part of the call automatically through an accessibility app.”
That was useful.
Grant listened.
Vance’s voice was clear enough.
She stopped the audio.
“Why would he abduct your sister?”
“I don’t know that he did.”
“You clearly think it.”
“I think he entered. I think she disappeared at the same time.”
Grant nodded.
“Fair distinction.”
We entered the apartment.
Skylar’s place looked exactly like Skylar.
Cream furniture.
Expensive lighting.
No clutter.
Everything chosen to suggest she had never touched anything ordinary.
But now a lamp was broken.
One couch cushion had been moved.
A drawer stood open.
I walked toward the balcony.
No sign she had climbed over.
No neighboring access.
“Security cameras?” I asked.
“Building system went offline at 2:41 a.m.”
“Convenient.”
“Very.”
I examined the front door.
No forced entry.
Vance had a key.
Hale stood near the kitchen island.
“Mara.”
He held a folder.
Inside were closing documents.
The deed.
Dad’s name appeared as purchaser seven years earlier.
Previous owner:
Cumberland Renewal LLC.
The same company buying land around Lake Briar.
“How did Dad buy from them?” I asked.
Hale scanned the paperwork.
“Below market.”
“How far below?”
“Almost forty percent.”
“Why would they sell cheap?”
“They may have wanted him to own it.”
That possibility was uncomfortable.
Maybe Dad was not simply investigating Cumberland.
Maybe at some point he had been part of it.
I searched Skylar’s office.
Bills.
Contracts.
Fashion magazines.
Nothing obvious.
Then I remembered Lena.
She had lived in the apartment before conversion.
If she hid something here, where?
Buildings changed.
Walls moved.
Floors replaced.
But structural spaces remained.
I examined the floor plan.
Skylar had a decorative bookcase built into one living room wall.
Too deep.
I measured mentally.
There was space behind it.
“Help me move this.”
Hale and I pulled.
Nothing.
The bookcase was anchored.
Grant came over.
“Looking for?”
“Something that existed before the renovation.”
She crouched.
“Then don’t move it.”
She pointed to a narrow line along the baseboard.
“A panel.”
We removed the lower trim.
Behind it was an old electrical box.
Empty except for a folded photograph.
It showed my mother.
Lena Ward.
And Robert Vance.
All three stood beside the cabin.
Dad had taken the picture.
On the back:
April 2009 — Evelyn says she has enough to stop them.
Enough.
Three months later, Mom died.
Grant photographed it.
Hale stared at Vance’s younger face.
“If he knew your mother had evidence…”
“He had motive.”
I reached inside the box again.
My fingers touched plastic.
A small key.
Stamped with the number 44.
And another note.
Not Dad’s handwriting.
A woman’s.
IF EVELYN IS DEAD, GO TO UNION STATION LOCKER 44.
I looked at Grant.
“Nashville Union Station?”
“It used to have public lockers years ago,” she said. “Not anymore.”
“Where did the contents go?”
“Depends when removed.”
Hale checked the date on the photograph.
“Seventeen years.”
Grant frowned.
“If someone maintained a private locker arrangement, maybe records still exist.”
Her phone rang.
She stepped away.
I searched the hidden box again.
One more item.
A cassette tape.
No label.
We found an old stereo in the apartment’s storage closet.
Skylar collected vintage décor without using it.
For once, that helped.
I inserted the cassette.
Static.
Then Mom’s voice.
My mother.
Seventeen years gone.
Alive in the room again.
“Thomas, if you’re hearing this, I was right about Vance.”
I sat down hard.
“She found the deeds. They used fake tax liens to pressure families around Briar Lake. People who fought back were threatened.”
Paper rustled on the recording.
“Lena has copies.”
Then Mom said something I did not understand.
“But the land isn’t the real reason.”
Hale leaned closer.
Mom continued.
“They found something beneath Parcel Seven.”
A door slammed in the old recording.
Mom whispered, “Someone’s here.”
The tape became chaotic.
Footsteps.
Then another voice.
Male.
“Evelyn?”
Robert Vance.
I knew it even younger.
The recording ended.
Grant returned.
Her expression was serious.
“We found your sister.”
I stood.
“Where?”
“Not her. Her car.”
“Where?”
“Parking garage three blocks away.”
“Was she inside?”
“No.”
Grant hesitated.
“There was blood on the driver’s seat.”
I stopped breathing.
Then she added:
“And this was taped to the windshield.”
She held up an evidence bag.
Inside was a note.
One sentence.
MARA HAS WHAT WE WANT.
May you like
Underneath was an address.
The address of the cabin.
