Chapter 11 - The Letter Without a Return Address
Six months after I watched Liam Thomas leave Evergreen Elementary with his mother, I finally stopped checking the sidewalk every afternoon expecting to see his small figure standing beneath the flagpole.
Life had returned to normal.
Or at least, I thought it had.
Gregory Vance was being held without bail in Multnomah County while federal prosecutors assembled charges involving kidnapping, identity fraud, forged documents, unlawful surveillance, and interstate flight. Detective Sarah Morales had warned me the case would take months, maybe years, before every piece was fully understood.
I had accepted that.
Then an envelope appeared beneath my apartment door.
No stamp.
No return address.
My name—OFFICER JACK DUNHAM—was printed in black block letters across the front.
I stood in the hallway for several seconds before touching it.
My instincts told me not to open it.
My training told me the same thing.
I photographed the envelope exactly where it lay, called Sergeant Miller, then used gloves to move it onto my kitchen counter.
There was only one sheet of paper inside.
Six words had been typed in the center.
VANCE WAS NEVER WORKING ALONE.
Below the sentence was a photograph.
It showed Liam standing outside his new school in Spokane.
The picture had been taken recently.
Maybe three days earlier.
My stomach went cold.
Liam wore a green winter jacket and held Clara’s hand near the school entrance. Behind them, slightly blurred, stood a white delivery van.
Written across the back of the photograph were three numbers.
Sergeant Miller arrived fifteen minutes later with Morales and two evidence technicians.
The second Morales saw Liam’s photograph, every trace of exhaustion disappeared from her face.
“Where was this taken?”
“Spokane,” I said. “That’s his new school.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve seen pictures Clara sent.”
Morales turned toward Miller.
“Call Spokane PD. Right now.”
Within minutes, officers were dispatched to Clara’s home and Liam’s school.
I called Clara myself.
She answered on the second ring.
“Jack?”
The sound of her voice nearly made me sag with relief.
“Where’s Liam?”
A pause.
“With me.”
“Inside the house?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Lock every door. Close the blinds. Don’t leave.”
Her breathing changed immediately.
“What happened?”
“Police are coming. I need you to trust me.”
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Then Clara whispered, “Is Gregory getting out?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
That was the question none of us could answer.
Morales placed the photograph inside an evidence sleeve.
“Those numbers mean something.”
A locker combination?
A date?
A file reference?
We spent the next hour comparing them against everything seized from Gregory’s basement.
Nothing matched.
Then Morales stopped scrolling through the digital evidence database.
“Wait.”
She enlarged a scanned page from one of Gregory’s notebooks.
Several entries contained initials followed by number combinations.
AM—12/8/6.
RT—19/2/4.
KV—17/4/12.
My eyes locked onto the final entry.
“Who’s KV?”
“We never identified them.”
A location was written beside the initials.
Evergreen.
My pulse jumped.
Gregory had been watching someone connected to the school long before Liam ever approached me.
Someone whose initials were KV.
Then the radio on Miller’s shoulder crackled.
“Sergeant, dispatch has a possible suspicious vehicle outside Evergreen Elementary.”
All three of us froze.
“Description?” Miller demanded.
“White commercial van. No visible company markings. Driver left before units arrived.”
Morales and I looked at each other.
Evergreen wasn’t Liam’s school anymore.
He was hundreds of miles away.
Which meant whoever sent that photograph wasn’t only watching Liam.
They were watching us.
I grabbed my jacket.
“Jack,” Miller warned, “slow down.”
“I’m not waiting for another seven-year-old to walk into my station because every adult around him missed the signs.”
Morales picked up her coat.
“You’re not going alone.”
Outside, rain hammered the street, turning Portland’s evening traffic into a river of reflected headlights.
As we reached my cruiser, my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One text message.
STOP DIGGING.
A second arrived immediately after.
THE BOY GOT ONE MIRACLE.
HE DOESN’T GET TWO.
I stared at the screen.
Then Morales’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her face changed almost instantly.
“What?”
She listened for five seconds.
Then looked directly at me.
“Gregory Vance was attacked in county lockup twenty minutes ago.”
“Is he alive?”
“Barely.”
May you like
She lowered the phone.
“Before he lost consciousness, he asked for you by name.”
