Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN THE PINK COAT
Emily didn't sleep.
Neither did I.
At six in the morning, Detective Carter came to my house.
She brought the photograph.
It was faded around the edges.
A winter afternoon.
The same house.
The same brick steps.
The same black iron railing.
A woman stood near the mailbox wearing a pink wool coat.
Emily held the photograph close.
“That's definitely Lorraine's coat.”
“How do you know?”
“She gave it to me after Sophie was born. Said it didn't fit her anymore.”
Carter pointed toward the woman.
The photograph was blurry.
Her face partly turned away.
Not Lorraine.
Too young.
Maybe thirty.
Maybe thirty-five.
On the back, handwritten:
DECEMBER 18.
No year.
No name.
Carter placed a second document beside it.
“Daniel's uncle mailed this with the picture.”
The letter was only three paragraphs.
I read it twice.
Patricia,
If this reaches Carter, then Lorraine knows I've decided to cooperate.
The house wasn't chosen because Emily liked it.
Daniel chose it because Lorraine needed access to what was already hidden there.
Ask about Rebecca Hale.
Do not let Emily sleep in that house until they find the basement wall.
My mouth went dry.
Emily whispered:
“Who is Rebecca Hale?”
Carter shook her head.
“We started searching overnight.”
“What did you find?”
“Very little.”
Rebecca Hale had owned the house before the couple who sold it to Emily and Daniel.
She purchased it eleven years earlier.
Sold it after only nine months.
Then disappeared from public records.
No current address.
No obvious social media.
No marriage record.
No death certificate.
“Maybe she moved,” Emily said.
“Maybe.”
Carter didn't sound convinced.
“What does Lorraine have to do with her?”
“We don't know yet.”
I remembered Daniel insisting on that particular house six years ago.
Emily had originally preferred another one.
This property was slightly above budget.
Daniel claimed the neighborhood was better.
He pushed hard.
Then his business failed.
His credit collapsed.
And I stepped in with eighty-two thousand dollars.
At the time, I thought I was helping my daughter.
Maybe Daniel had known I would.
“Did Lorraine know Rebecca?”
Carter looked at me.
“I believe so.”
She opened another file.
A bank statement.
Nine years earlier, Rebecca Hale received $40,000 from Lorraine Bennett.
Three weeks later, Rebecca sold the house.
Emily stared.
“Lorraine bought her out?”
“Possibly.”
“But Lorraine didn't buy the house.”
“No.”
A couple from Delaware purchased it, renovated almost nothing, rented it for two years, then sold it to Emily and Daniel.
Carter tapped their names.
“The couple who owned it between Rebecca and Emily were business associates of Daniel's late father.”
My eyes narrowed.
“How many coincidences do you allow before you stop calling them coincidences?”
Carter gave me a tired look.
“Usually three.”
We were well beyond three.
At nine that morning, police returned to the house with a second warrant.
This one authorized examination of the basement structure.
Emily refused to go.
I did.
Michael came with me.
Lorraine and Daniel had been told not to return while the investigation continued.
Rachel was cooperating separately.
The house looked different in daylight.
Not evil.
That was the unsettling part.
Family houses rarely looked like crime scenes before someone explained what happened inside them.
In the basement, investigators moved shelving away from the far wall.
I had seen that wall dozens of times.
Concrete block.
Utility sink.
Old freezer.
Nothing strange.
Then one officer used a thermal scanner.
“There.”
A rectangular void appeared behind the wall.
Michael looked at me.
“That's not normal.”
Workers removed part of the newer blockwork.
Behind it was a narrow cavity.
Not a room.
More like a hidden compartment.
Inside were plastic tubs.
Five of them.
Detective Carter opened the first.
Financial records.
Old.
Some dated more than a decade earlier.
The second contained jewelry boxes.
The third contained driver's licenses.
Different women.
Different names.
Rebecca Hale.
Jennifer Porter.
Melissa Grant.
Four others.
My skin crawled.
“What is this?”
Carter didn't answer.
She opened the fourth container.
Photographs.
Lorraine appeared in several.
So did Daniel's father, Frank Bennett.
Frank had supposedly died eight years earlier after suffering a heart attack while traveling for work.
I recognized him immediately.
He was younger in the photos.
Standing beside Lorraine.
Standing beside Rebecca Hale.
Standing beside men I didn't know.
Then Michael picked up a folder.
“Patricia.”
Inside were real-estate deeds.
Seven properties.
All purchased by women.
All later transferred into shell companies connected to Frank and Lorraine.
Some signatures appeared suspiciously similar.
Carter's face hardened.
“This wasn't the first house.”
The hidden compartment wasn't about one affair.
Or one forged deed.
Daniel's family had apparently been running some form of property scheme long before Emily entered their lives.
Then an officer opened the fifth container.
Inside was an old video camera.
MiniDV tapes.
One was labeled:
REBECCA — DECEMBER 18.
Carter found a camera in the evidence kit capable of playing it.
The footage shook.
Someone was filming from a car across the street.
Rebecca Hale appeared on the porch in the pink coat.
A vehicle pulled up.
Lorraine got out.
Then Frank.
They argued with Rebecca.
No sound.
Rebecca pointed toward the house.
Frank grabbed her arm.
She pulled away.
Lorraine said something.
Rebecca began crying.
Then Daniel appeared.
Younger.
About twenty-six.
Emily's future husband.
He carried a cardboard box from the house to the trunk of Frank's car.
Emily had been dating him then.
I stared at the screen.
“He knew.”
Carter nodded.
Daniel had been part of whatever happened here before marrying my daughter.
The video continued.
Rebecca suddenly looked directly toward the camera.
She seemed to realize someone was filming.
Then she ran toward the street.
The image jolted.
The tape ended.
No explanation.
No aftermath.
Only static.
Michael whispered:
“Who was filming?”
Nobody knew.
Then Carter's phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Her expression changed.
“Where?”
Another pause.
“Don't touch anything.”
She hung up.
“What?”
Carter looked at me.
“They found Rebecca Hale.”
Emily had been right.
She hadn't disappeared.
She had moved.
At least for a while.
Because according to the records Carter had just received, Rebecca Hale had been admitted to a long-term psychiatric facility in Pennsylvania seven years earlier.
May you like
Under another name.
The emergency contact listed on her file was Lorraine Bennett.
