Chapter 7 - THE HOUSE WITH NO CURTAINS7
The safest place police could move us on short notice was a furnished rental house owned by the county for protected witnesses.
It had no family photographs.
No familiar furniture.
No marks on the doorframe measuring Noah’s height.
Nothing that belonged to us.
That was the point.
We arrived after midnight.
Dad stayed elsewhere under police supervision because investigators believed separating us temporarily reduced the chance that Evan could reach everyone at once.
Leah was taken to another location.
Jenna remained with friends.
For the first time since Noah was born, I slept in a house where nobody I loved could easily find me.
Noah climbed into bed beside me.
“Is Daddy mad?”
I stared into the darkness.
There are questions children ask that parents want to answer with comforting lies.
I had lived among lies long enough.
“Yes.”
“Because I called Grandpa?”
“No.”
He was quiet.
“Then why?”
“Because Daddy made bad choices. And when people don’t want to be responsible for their choices, sometimes they get angry at other people.”
“Am I bad?”
My heart cracked.
I turned toward him.
“No. You helped me.”
“Daddy said kids shouldn’t tell family things.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course he had.
“What happens in our family is never a secret you have to keep if someone is scared or hurt.”
Noah nodded.
“Even from Daddy?”
“Especially then.”
He fell asleep with one hand on my arm.
I remained awake.
At two thirteen, something moved outside.
I sat up.
A branch scratched the window.
Nothing more.
Still, I did not sleep.
By morning, Detective Ortiz brought information that made the situation worse.
Evan had not violated his electronic-monitoring boundary.
The photograph sent to Leah had been taken within that permitted zone.
“He wants us to know the restrictions don’t frighten him,” I said.
Ortiz nodded.
“He’s communicating indirectly.”
“How did he get the number?”
“We’re tracing it.”
“Which means you don’t know.”
“Not yet.”
She placed a folder on the table.
“We found the source of some of your medical records.”
Dr. Simone Avery.
The same physician connected to Leah.
I had never met her.
Yet several pages bearing her electronic signature described consultations with me.
Fake consultations.
The records claimed I suffered anxiety, paranoia and dissociative episodes.
Avery had retired three years earlier.
Investigators visited her home.
She was eighty-one.
She initially denied remembering Evan.
Then agents showed her Leah’s photograph.
She began crying.
“What did she tell them?” I asked.
“That Judith Rourke paid her.”
“How much?”
“Over several years, approximately ninety thousand dollars.”
“For fake medical records?”
“Among other things.”
“Whose records?”
Ortiz hesitated.
“At least four women.”
The network became clearer.
Not a formal organization.
Something more insidious.
A collection of professionals willing to bend rules.
A lawyer.
A doctor.
A police officer.
A shipping family.
Each crime disguised inside legitimate systems.
A medical opinion.
A legal petition.
A police report.
A property transfer.
Nobody needed to break into a bank vault if they could make a woman appear incompetent and legally take control of her life.
“What about Peter Russell?” I asked.
“He denies accepting money.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe evidence.”
“Which says?”
“A company connected to Judith paid off his mortgage eleven years ago.”
I stared at her.
“That seems like evidence.”
“It is.”
The next revelation came from Evan’s electronic monitor.
At eleven that morning, he left his approved residence for a scheduled legal meeting.
His route passed less than a mile from Dad’s house.
He did not stop.
He did not violate conditions.
But exactly three minutes after his car passed the nearest intersection, the security camera at Dad’s house went offline.
Someone had cut the cable.
Police found no intruder.
Only a small cardboard box left near the garage.
Inside was a fishing lure.
The same kind Dad used when Noah went fishing with him.
Attached was a note.
FAMILIES SHOULD KNOW WHEN TO LET GO.
Dad wanted Evan’s release revoked.
So did I.
Ortiz submitted the evidence.
While we waited, Caleb Ross reappeared.
Through his attorney.
He offered to cooperate.
The news shocked everyone.
“What does he want?” Dad asked over the phone.
“Immunity consideration,” Ortiz said.
“For what?”
“He hasn’t specified.”
“Then he knows he’s guilty.”
“Knowing and proving are different.”
Caleb claimed he had been manipulated by Malcolm and Judith for decades.
He claimed the legal files in his archives were legitimate client records.
He admitted knowing Evan’s real identity but insisted he believed the name change was legal.
He admitted preparing documents for me.
He claimed Evan told him I was mentally unwell.
“He watched me grow up,” I said. “He knew that was a lie.”
Ortiz agreed.
But Caleb had something investigators wanted.
Judith Rourke’s location.
According to Caleb, she was alive.
And she had never left Washington.
She lived less than ninety miles away under another name.
Federal agents found her in a small house near Olympia.
Inside they discovered eleven prepaid phones.
Five passports.
Old financial records.
Photographs.
And a locked steel cabinet.
The cabinet contained jewelry.
Wallets.
Personal documents.
Belongings from women listed in the red ledger.
One item belonged to Erica Sloan.
A silver bracelet identified by her sister.
Judith was arrested.
Within hours, Evan’s monitoring device stopped transmitting.
Ortiz called me immediately.
“He removed it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“The signal disappeared during a system interruption.”
“Coincidence?”
“No.”
Police went to his approved residence.
Empty.
His bracelet lay on the kitchen counter.
Beside it was a photograph of me.
Evan had drawn a red circle around my face.
Ortiz moved Noah and me again.
This time, I did not know the address until we arrived.
Neither did Dad.
They took our phones.
All communication went through investigators.
Evan had become a fugitive.
News outlets began reporting his photograph.
I watched his face appear on television.
My husband.
Noah’s father.
Wanted in connection with identity fraud and suspected involvement in multiple disappearances.
It should have felt unreal.
Instead it felt more real than our marriage ever had.
That evening, Leah asked to speak with me through a secured line.
“I remembered something.”
“What?”
“Evan used to say that if everything went wrong, there was one place nobody would look.”
“Where?”
“He never told me.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“I know. But he called it the house with no curtains.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Noah, who had been drawing beside me, looked up.
“What house?”
I covered the receiver.
“The house with no curtains.”
He smiled.
“I know.”
Every adult in the room turned.
“You know what?”
“Daddy’s other house.”
My blood ran cold.
“What other house?”
“The one where we went after Uncle Caleb.”
I crouched beside him.
“You went to a house?”
He nodded.
“What did it look like?”
“Brown.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it in the city?”
He shrugged.
“Were there stores?”
“No.”
“Trees?”
“Yes.”
“Anything you remember?”
Noah thought.
“There was a big white tower.”
Ortiz grabbed a map.
“What kind of tower?”
“With a red light.”
A communications tower.
There were dozens.
Maybe hundreds.
Then Noah added:
“And Daddy said we could see Grandpa’s old boats from there.”
Dad’s old boats.
The industrial waterfront.
Higher ground overlooking Commencement Bay.
Ortiz began narrowing locations.
Twenty minutes later, she found a property registered to a shell company connected to Caleb.
A small house above Ruston.
Brown siding.
No curtains visible in the listing photographs.
A communications tower less than half a mile away.
Agents moved toward the location.
The house was empty.
But it was not abandoned.
Food in the refrigerator.
Fresh clothing.
A laptop charger.
A child’s booster seat.
Noah’s size.
I felt sick.
Then investigators opened the basement.
The walls were covered in photographs.
Leah.
Erica.
Corinne.
Dad.
Jenna.
Me.
Hundreds.
Years of surveillance.
Some taken from public places.
Others through windows.
One showed me leaving high school.
I had been seventeen.
Evan was already watching my family two years before Leah disappeared.
That destroyed our theory.
If revenge for Leah began twelve years ago, why was Evan photographing me fifteen years ago?
Ortiz sent one image to Dad.
He stared at it.
Then whispered:
“This started before Leah.”
“What did?”
“Me.”
He looked at me.
“I thought Evan targeted you because I saved Leah.”
Dad’s voice became hollow.
“I was wrong.”
“Then why?”
He enlarged the oldest photograph.
It showed seventeen-year-old me standing beside my mother.
Elaine Bennett.
Mom was laughing.
Behind us stood another man.
Caleb.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written two words.
SECOND DAUGHTER.
I looked at Dad.
“What does that mean?”
He began shaking.
“Your mother had a sister.”
“I know. Aunt Rebecca died when Mom was little.”
Dad shook his head.
“That’s what your grandfather told everyone.”
I stared at him.
“What really happened?”
May you like
His next words opened the oldest secret in our family.
“Rebecca didn’t die.”
