I plugged it in at home and waited nearly an hour before the screen finally lit.
“Look what else was in there.”
She handed me
I knew that case immediately. Nick had used it for years before he told everyone he’d lost that phone.
I plugged it in at home and waited nearly an hour before the screen finally lit.
It did not ask for a passcode. Either Nick had never set one, or the old phone had been damaged enough to forget how to keep secrets.
My hands started shaking before I even opened the gallery.
Gabriel was standing behind the cabin beside Nick’s truck at dawn.
There was almost nothing on
I opened it and nearly dropped the phone.
Gabriel was standing behind the cabin beside Nick’s truck at dawn.
He was wearing the jacket Olivia had found.
He was not near the lake.
He was holding an envelope tight against his chest.
He was not standing in rain.
The sky behind him was pale and clear.
Nick had told police Gabriel woke early, headed for the water, and vanished after a storm rolled in. But in that photo
Then I zoomed in.
He was holding an envelope tight against his chest.
That envelope had never been found.
My name was written across the front in Gabriel’s blocky handwriting.
That envelope had never been found.
I almost drove straight to Nick’s house. I wanted to slam the phone on his table and ask him where my husband was. But the jacket and phone told me something important. Nick had not hidden things carefully. He had hidden them quickly.
That made him dangerous, but it also made him sloppy.
First I checked archived weather reports for the town near the cabin.
So I kept quiet and started building the morning myself.
First I checked archived weather reports for the town near the cabin.
Clear at dawn.
Clouds building late morning.
Storm warnings not issued until afternoon.
I stared at the screen until the words blurred. For a year, people had told me the storm took him. Now the storm was the first thing giving him back.
After that, I drove to the cabin rental office.
Then I pulled up the last text Gabriel had sent me before he lost signal.
“Back Sunday. I promise.”
After that, I drove to the cabin rental office.
The woman at the desk listened while I told her Gabriel’s missing jacket had just turned up inside Nick’s garage. Her face changed when I mentioned the old phone and the photo.
I asked whether they still had door-code records from that weekend.
I drove straight to the sheriff’s office.
She said they did, but she could not release them to me without law enforcement.
That frustrated me, but it also told me the records existed.
I drove straight to the sheriff’s office.
The deputy who met with me had been kind the year before, but kind in that tired way people get when they think there is nothing left to find. I put the jacket, the phone, and a printed copy of the photo on his desk.
That changed his face.
Then I told him the rental office had entry logs.
I showed him the weather report too.
Then I told him the rental office had entry logs.
He called from his desk while I sat there listening.
When he got the records, he read them twice.
“The cabin door code was used at 5:42 a.m. and again at 6:11 a.m. on Saturday.”
Nick had said he was asleep until after the storm hit.
On the drive home, I kept hearing Gabriel’s voice from the week before the trip.
He had said Gabriel left alone before sunrise and never came back.
But someone used that door code twice during the window he claimed he was sleeping.
That was the second crack.
On the drive home, I kept hearing Gabriel’s voice from the week before the trip.
“When I get back, we need to talk about something Nick asked me for.”
So that night, after the girls were asleep, I went through Gabriel’s desk.
Nick’s name beside them again and again.
In the back of one drawer, inside a fishing manual, I found a note card covered in numbers.
