Page 58 of Tangled Past
“Maybe because he knew the wrong partner could get them killed faster,” Asa said. “If Vanessa was right about him being someone with influence, then my father might not have known who to trust.”
Will looked down at the notebook, his expression bleak. “He was right not to trust anyone,” he murmured. “Whoever removed that adoption file had access to state systems. They knew exactly what they were doing.”
“Maybe it was the deceased agency employee. She might have been working with the killer,” JT said.
Maya knelt beside Asa, her leg brushing his. “What does this mean for us?”
He lifted his gaze to hers. “It means someone has been trying to erase you using intimidation since the moment my father died.”
Her throat worked. “And the others? Those women. The ones on that list. He killed them, didn’t he?”
Asa didn’t sugarcoat it. “Probably. Your mother saw him take at least one of the missing women. That’s what made her a target.”
Will straightened. “We need copies of everything,” he said. “Photographs. Scans. We get this to the state cold case unit, and we start cross-referencing every one of these incidents. We cannot assume he stopped killing with Raymond and Vanessa.”
Rachel nodded, already pulling out new evidence bags. “I’ll secure the original,” she said. “We’ll log everything under both cases—Raymond’s and Vanessa’s.”
Maya’s hand slid from Asa’s shoulder to his hand, fingers curling, hesitant.
He turned his palm up, letting her tuck her hand into his.
“My mother—she’s dead, isn’t she?” she said, her voice wobbly.
He gently squeezed her hand. “I believe so.” Asa hated saying that. The only good thing to come from all of this was that they now had more to go on, and they knew Maya’s name was Maya Warren. “At least we know now that your mother was running for good reason.”
Tears welled in her eyes, but they didn’t spill. “She stood up even when she was terrified. She decided to talk. I keep coming back to that.”
“Bravery doesn’t always mean fighting,” Asa said, remembering the way his father had once described it. “Sometimes it means leaving. Sometimes it looks like telling the truth when you know it could hurt you.”
Maya’s grip tightened.
Asa breathed a prayer he didn’t bother to polish.Thank You for them. For her. For him. Don’t let us waste what they gave us.Out loud, he said, “We’re going to finish this. For both of them.”
She nodded once. “And for the others,” she added. “The ones whose names we don’t even know yet.”
He could feel it—like something shifting under the surface of the case. A current pulling harder. Faster.
The killer had spent two decades making sure these pages never saw the light of day. He made sure Vanessa became a ghost and Maya stayed an orphan in the system with no past.
Now, those words were out. They weren’t just paper anymore. They were evidence. They were a story. A promise that the man who’d hunted them all was running out of shadows to hide in.
“We head back,” Will said. “We secure this, we loop in the state, and we assume he will hit back the moment he realizes Raymond’s insurance policy didn’t stay buried.” He met Asa’s gaze. “From here on out, we’re not just chasing a killer in a barn. We’re hunting a serial killer who’s been at this longer than any of us have worn badges.”
Asa stood, pulling Maya up with him. “Then we make it count,” he said. “For my father. For Vanessa. For the girl he tried to erase and failed.” He glanced once more at the dark opening of the crawl space, at the place his father had chosen to hide the truth.
Echoes in the walls.
Now finally,finally,the echoes spoke.
Somewhere out there, he knew the man who’d killed Raymond and hunted Vanessa felt it too.
Not safety. Not control. But the first real tremor of something he hadn’t expected to feel.
Pressure.
