Chapter 7 - RACHEL DUNN
Rachel had disappeared from our lives so cleanly that I had never questioned it.
Trent told me she moved to Arizona.
Better job.
Fresh start.
I even remembered buying a goodbye card.
There had been no goodbye party.
No forwarding address.
Nothing.
Santos found her in Kentucky.
Alive.
Terrified.
And willing to talk after learning I had been hospitalized.
Rachel told investigators that Trent began seeing her during a period when I was caring for my dying father.
When she tried to end the relationship, Trent became controlling.
Then violent.
She reported him.
Brock arrived.
Rachel showed him messages.
Photographs.
A damaged apartment door.
Brock told her there was not enough evidence.
Three days later, Trent offered her money to leave town.
She took it.
“I thought nobody would believe me,” Rachel told Santos over a recorded call.
Then she said something that changed the investigation.
“Brock wasn’t protecting Trent because they were friends.”
Santos leaned toward the speaker.
“Why was he protecting him?”
Rachel hesitated.
“Because Trent was paying him.”
The construction company I had found in our bank records was not really a construction company.
It was a shell.
Payments flowed through it.
Some went to Brock.
Others went to people Santos had not yet identified.
Suddenly my marriage was no longer the entire case.
It was one piece.
Harry sat beside me while Santos explained.
“You think Trent ran because he knew Cassidy kept evidence?”
“Yes.”
“Where would he go?”
I thought about the safe-deposit box.
Then another location came to mind.
“Our lake cabin.”
Harry looked at me.
“You sold that.”
“I thought we did.”
Santos understood immediately.
“You never saw closing documents?”
“Trent handled them.”
She stepped into the hallway and made a call.
Twenty minutes later, she returned.
The cabin still belonged to a holding company connected to Trent.
And a traffic camera had just captured his pickup heading north.
But Trent was not alone.
Another vehicle appeared several minutes behind him.
A sheriff’s SUV.
Harry looked at Santos.
“I thought Brock was here.”
“He is.”
“Then whose SUV is that?”
Santos stared at the image.
May you like
That was when the investigation became bigger again.
Because Brock had not been the only badge protecting my husband.
