Chapter 6 - The Ghost from the Past
The word hung in the sterile conference room like a guillotine blade.
*No.*
Toby hadn't made it out.
Maisie was alive because she had crawled with a broken fibula across cold linoleum. Maisie was alive because she had climbed a mop bucket and reached the top of a water heater. Maisie was alive because an emergency dispatcher had heard a child's frantic whisper: *Please don't call Mommy. He'll answer.*
"Where is Clara Jennings now?" I asked, my voice completely stripped of fear, replaced by a hollow, predatory focus.
"She lives outside Detroit," Miller said. "She barely survived the fire herself. Third-degree burns over forty percent of her body. The local police ruled it an accidental electrical fire caused by faulty space heater wiring. Marcus Vance—going by the name David Miller back then—collected an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar payout and vanished before the memorial service."
"Connect me with her," I demanded.
"Heather, you're a civilian witness. CPS and the state’s attorney need you to focus on Maisie's recovery—"
"Connect me with her, Detective!" I slammed both hands onto the table, leaning forward until my face was inches from his. "If that monster gets bail tomorrow, he will finish what he started. He knows Maisie can put him away for attempted murder. He knows I will spend every dollar I have hunting him down. Put me on the phone with that mother right now!"
Miller stared at me for a long, heavy moment. In his eyes, I saw the weariness of a cop who had lost too many battles to bureaucratic technicalities.
Without a word, he pulled his personal cell phone from his pocket, scrolled through his contacts, and tapped a number. He put it on speaker and laid it on the table between us.
*Ring.*
*Ring.*
*Click.*
*"Detective Miller?"* The voice was raspy, scarred by smoke inhalation and years of grief. It sounded fragile, like dry autumn leaves scraping across pavement.
"Clara," Miller said gently. "Thank you for taking my call. I'm sitting here with Heather Cole. She’s... she’s the woman in Willow Creek I mentioned."
A sharp intake of breath hissed over the line.
*"Is your baby alive?"* Clara asked instantly. Her voice cracked with an agonizing mixture of desperation and terror. *"Please tell me your baby is alive."*
"She's alive, Clara," I choked out, tears finally breaking through my rigid mask. "Maisie has a broken leg, but she’s alive. She called 911 from our laundry room before he could start the fire."
A ragged, shuddering sob echoed through the phone's speaker. For nearly twenty seconds, Clara Jennings wept—a sound of unadulterated, decades-deep agony being answered across the void.
*"He didn't get her,"* Clara wept. *"Thank God. Oh God, thank God. Toby... Toby tried to call me too, Heather. When they found his little body, he had his toy walkie-talkie clutched in his hand. David... Marcus... he had taken the batteries out of it that morning. He took my baby's voice away before he lit the match."*
The room seemed to shrink, crushed under the weight of Clara's sorrow.
"Clara," I said, leaning closer to the phone. "His lawyer is trying to get him out on bond tomorrow morning. They’re claiming our house had old kerosene, that Maisie fell, that I'm coaching her. What did he leave behind with you? What did the police miss four years ago?"
*"The tracker,"* Clara said without a single second of hesitation.
Miller leaned in, his brow furrowing. "What tracker, Clara?"
*"Marcus is obsessive,"* Clara explained, her voice hardening, regaining strength through shared rage. *"He doesn't just rely on timing. He monitors everything remotely. When the fire marshals investigated my house, they said the fire started at the exact moment I clocked into my shift at the hospital. He knew my exact location down to the yard."*
My breath caught in my throat.
"How?" I whispered.
*"He buys high-end GPS relay beacons,"* Clara said. *"He hides them in the victim's personal belongings. In my case, they found melted titanium casing inside the lining of my work tote bag three months after the funeral. But the local cops didn't know what it was. They thought it was a piece of an old laptop battery."*
My mind raced through every gift Adam had given me.
Every thoughtful little accessory he had brought home from his 'job sites.'
The leather steering wheel cover for my car.
The custom insulated water bottle I took to the hospital every morning.
The designer leather backpack he gave me for my birthday.
And... the plush purple bunny Maisie slept with every single night.
The bunny with the extra-stiff seam down its spine that Adam had personally repaired when the stitching came undone two months ago.
"Detective," I whispered, the hair on my arms standing straight up. "Maisie’s stuffed rabbit. It’s sitting on the backseat of my car right now. In the hospital parking lot."
Miller was already on his feet, reaching for his radio.
"Unit Four, this is Miller. I need a canine unit and evidence tech down to the visitor parking structure, Level B, immediately. Target vehicle is a blue Subaru Outback. Do not breach until I arrive."
Miller turned back to the phone. "Clara, if we find a live transmitter registered to his offshore server, it establishes premeditated digital stalking and links directly to your forensic profile in Michigan. We can hit him with federal kidnapping and interstate stalking charges before his bond hearing even convenes."
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*"Find it,"* Clara hissed over the line, her voice blazing with the fury of a bereaved mother. *"Find it, Detective. And don't let that monster see the light of day ever again."*
***
