Chapter 4 - The Woman Behind the Wall
The unidentified woman had suffered a fracture to the back of her skull.
Her clothing suggested she had died around the same time Rebecca disappeared.
A county employee badge was found beneath the remains.
The name was Helen Price.
Detective Alvarez discovered that Helen had worked as a building inspector.
She had been scheduled to meet Rebecca on the night of the disappearance.
Official records claimed Helen died in a car accident two counties away.
The body from that accident had been cremated without identification.
The death certificate had been signed by a physician who later became a major investor in Caldwell Development.
This was no longer one missing woman.
It was an organized cover-up.
Grant remained in jail after prosecutors charged him with felony assault.
At his bail hearing, three relatives claimed the plate had slipped from his hand.
Lucas testified that Grant had thrown it deliberately.
The judge denied bail after learning Grant had tried to contact witnesses.
Naomi began preparing my divorce.
She also obtained a court order preventing Grant or his relatives from entering my condo.
“Do you want any part of the Caldwell assets?” she asked.
“No.”
“You may be entitled to significant money.”
“I want my home and the truth.”
“That answer is emotionally healthy and legally inconvenient.”
“You’ll survive.”
She smiled.
“I usually do.”
The investigation changed when Victor Hale, Charles’s longtime driver, was nearly killed in a car explosion.
The vehicle belonged to Charles.
Victor had borrowed it for a supply run.
Police believed someone expected Charles to be inside.
Victor survived with severe burns.
He asked to speak with Lucas and me.
At the hospital, he could barely open his eyes.
When he saw Lucas, tears ran into the bandages around his face.
“You look like her.”
“Tell me what happened to my mother,” Lucas said.
Victor requested protection.
Detective Alvarez agreed to consider it in exchange for complete cooperation.
Victor confessed that he helped conceal Helen Price’s body.
Helen arrived at the vineyard to collect evidence from Rebecca.
Eleanor confronted both women in the cellar.
“She struck Helen with a bronze decanter,” Victor whispered.
“Did Charles help?” I asked.
“He watched.”
“And Rebecca?”
“Eleanor kept her alive.”
Lucas stepped closer.
“Where?”
“At an abandoned winery near Calistoga.”
Victor explained that Eleanor believed Rebecca had hidden copies of the inspection reports. She imprisoned her for nearly three weeks.
“Then what?” Daniel asked.
“She escaped.”
“How?”
“I left a door unlocked.”
Everyone stared at him.
Victor began crying.
“I had already helped bury Helen. I could not watch another woman die.”
“Where did Rebecca go?” Lucas demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“Did Eleanor search for her?”
“Every day for eighteen years.”
Victor revealed that Eleanor received anonymous birthday cards each year.
No return address.
No message.
Only a small drawing of a broken wineglass.
Rebecca was alive.
At least, she had been alive recently.
Detective Alvarez asked who planted the bomb.
Victor looked toward the closed hospital door.
“Melissa.”
Grant’s sister.
The quiet woman who had tried to leave the dining room after I called the police.
“Why would Melissa kill her father?” I asked.
“Because Charles killed her husband.”
Melissa’s husband, Adrian Cole, had died four years earlier in a boat fire.
The death was ruled accidental.
Victor said Adrian had discovered that Caldwell Development laundered money through fake subcontractors. He planned to report the family and take his son away.
Charles damaged the boat’s fuel line.
Melissa learned the truth only months ago.
“Where is she now?” Detective Alvarez asked.
“She took her son and disappeared this morning.”
Melissa’s son, Owen, was ten.
Eleanor had controlled his schooling, medical care, and trust fund.
Melissa had spent years believing she could not escape without losing him.
Police began searching for them.
That evening, I received a video call.
Melissa appeared on the screen.
She was standing inside my condo.
Behind her, Owen cried silently.
“How did you get in?” I asked.
“My mother kept a copy of the original building master key.”
“What do you want?”
“Your father hid more than one recording.”
“The police already searched.”
“They did not know where to look.”
Melissa lifted my father’s red toolbox.
“There is a false bottom.”
“What is on the recording?”
“The truth about your marriage.”
A loud pounding came from outside the condo.
Melissa looked toward the door.
Her face filled with terror.
“They found us.”
“Who?”
“My mother’s security team.”
The lights went out.
The video ended.
Police reached the condo six minutes later.
The front door was open.
May you like
Melissa and Owen were gone.
On the floor beside my father’s empty toolbox, someone had left Grant’s wedding ring.
