Chapter 4 - THE STORAGE LOCKER
The storage unit contained no dramatic confession.
That made it more useful.
Boxes.
Receipts.
Printed emails.
Photographs.
A small digital recorder.
Copies of bank records.
Olivia had built a file.
Rachel Wade’s husband, Thomas, owned a regional construction company.
Wade Infrastructure Services.
Public contracts.
Road work.
Utility projects.
Rachel had done bookkeeping during the marriage.
She discovered invoices from subcontractors that did not exist.
Payments moved through three companies:
Blue Ridge Materials.
Hollow Creek Consulting.
Wade Family Holdings.
Amounts:
$180,000.
$260,000.
$95,000.
Small enough individually to look ordinary inside multimillion-dollar projects.
Large enough together to become theft.
Rachel also discovered something worse.
Thomas used her electronic signature on two loan guarantees.
If the loans failed, she could be personally liable.
She wanted out.
Olivia helped her copy records.
Then Rachel vanished.
Police initially treated it as a possible voluntary disappearance.
Thomas told them she had been unstable.
He produced messages.
I can’t do this anymore.
I need to disappear.
Don’t look for me.
Real messages.
But incomplete.
The recorder in Olivia’s locker held Rachel’s voice.
“I wrote those messages because Thomas checks my phone.”
Another recording:
“If I disappear, I did not leave my girls.”
Mara listened twice.
“Why wasn’t this given to police?”
Ethan looked at the date.
Two days before Olivia’s death.
She had not had time.
Then Aaron found a receipt.
Private mailbox.
Cash payment.
Package sent to:
Cedar Hollow Cabin.
The package date:
three days before Olivia died.
Recipient:
Rachel Wade.
The cabin.
May you like
Ethan’s cabin.
Olivia had prepared it as a hiding place.
