“Mara?”
“Yes?”
“There’s one more thing.” He told her about Sara, the packed bag, the fear, the sheriff interview.
“Bring me her number,” Mara said. “Tonight.”
After he hung up, Gabe stayed on the tailgate until the mosquitoes drove him inside. He found his mother in the living room turning the pages of an old photo album without really seeing them.
“She’s getting a warrant,” he said.
Diane looked up. “For the house?”
He nodded.
She closed the album slowly. “Part of me prayed this day would come.” Her fingers rested on the cover. “Part of me dreaded it.”
“You don’t have to go tomorrow.”
“Yes,” she said after a moment. “I do.”
The warrant was signed at 8:12 a.m.
By 9:30, two sheriff’s vehicles, a county evidence van, and a pickup with a cadaver dog unit were bumping up the gravel drive to Arnold Walker’s farmhouse. The sky was white with heat. Dust rose behind the tires and drifted across the weeds.
Gabe arrived with Diane and Linda in Ray’s truck. His father drove in silence, jaw locked, eyes fixed straight ahead. When they stepped out, Gabe saw Mara near the porch speaking with a uniformed deputy and a crime scene technician in a windbreaker despite the weather.
She walked over.
“Judge signed everything,” she said. “House, barn, smokehouse, root cellar, well, surrounding grounds within the property line.”
Diane swallowed. “Do you really think…?”
Mara did not lie. “I think your daughter’s case deserves a thorough search.”
Ray stared at the house. “This is insane.”
Mara turned to him. “Mr. Walker, if you interfere, I’ll have you removed from the scene.”
He looked like he wanted to protest, but something in her tone told him there was no room for a father’s pride here, no room for the habits that had protected Arnold in life.
The dog handler led a lean German shepherd from the truck. The animal moved with eerie focus, nose low, tail steady. Deputies photographed every room before touching anything. The old mattress came out first, wrapped in plastic. The bedroom was searched inch by inch.
Gabe stood under the pecan tree with his aunt while Diane sat in a folding chair brought out by one of the deputies. She held a bottle of water in both hands and stared at nothing.
Linda leaned close. “I need to tell you something.”
Gabe turned. Her face was pinched and tired.
“What?”
“Two days before Ellie disappeared, she called me at work in Dallas.” Linda wiped sweat from her upper lip. “She asked if she could come stay with me for a little while.”
Gabe stared. “You never told anyone?”
“I was ashamed.”
“Of what?”
Linda’s voice broke. “Of how quickly I told her no.”
He said nothing.
“I had a tiny apartment,” Linda rushed on. “I was working double shifts. I’d just gotten divorced. I thought she was being impulsive. Your granddaddy was always saying she was dramatic, and…” She closed her eyes. “And I let that get in my head. She said she didn’t feel safe. I asked if he’d hit her. She got quiet and said, ‘Not yet, but I think he’s going to do worse.’”
Gabe felt the words land like stones.
“What did you do?”
“I told her I’d call on the weekend and we’d figure something out.” Linda looked at the ground. “I never called. By then she was gone.”
For a long moment the only sound between them was the dog barking sharply near the side yard where the grass met the hard-packed dirt behind the smokehouse.
Everyone turned.
The handler crouched, gave a command, and the dog circled a patch of ground near an old concrete slab half swallowed by weeds. Mara was there in seconds. Another deputy marked the area with a bright orange flag.
“What is that?” Diane whispered.
Ray’s face changed.
Gabe saw it happen—recognition moving across his father’s features like a stain spreading through fabric.
“You know something,” Gabe said.
Ray did not answer immediately. He kept staring at the slab.
“The summer she disappeared,” he said at last, voice rough, “my father poured that concrete the next morning.”
Mara whipped around. “For what purpose?”
Ray swallowed. “He said he was putting in a platform for a generator.”
“Was a generator ever installed?”
