Chapter 4 - The Blue Notebook
I didn't wait for Miller’s permission. I rushed out of the conference room and down the hall toward Maya’s room. The hospital room was quiet, save for the rhythmic, soothing beep of the heart monitor attached to her finger.
As I opened the door, Maya stirred. She looked up at me, her wide hazel eyes bright despite the dark circles beneath them.
“Daddy?” she whispered. “Did they find Mom?”
I sat on the edge of her bed, taking her small hand in mine. “The police are searching for her right now, Maya. They found her car heading north. But I need to ask you something really important, okay? You told me earlier about a blue notebook.”
Maya nodded slowly. She looked around the room, making sure the nurses weren't listening, then pulled me closer by my collar.
“Mom showed it to me two weeks ago,” Maya murmured, her breath warm against my ear. “She told me that if anything ever happened to her—if Julian ever tried to make us leave—I had to get the notebook to you.”
“Do you know where it is, sweetie? The police searched the house, and Julian searched it, but neither of them found it.”
Maya swallowed hard. “Julian searched the house, but he didn’t search my things. Mom didn’t hide it in the walls or under the floor. She hid it inside my giant stuffed bear—the big brown one you bought me for my seventh birthday.”
My breath caught in my throat. The oversized teddy bear had been Maya’s favorite toy for years. It was currently sitting in the backseat of my truck, where Maya had left it the last time she stayed at my apartment.
“It’s in Barnaby?” I asked.
Maya nodded. “Mom unsewed the back, put the blue book inside the stuffing, and sewed it back up with blue thread. She made me promise not to tell Julian, no matter what he said to me.”
“You are so brave, Maya,” I said, kissing her forehead gently. “You did so well.”
I stood up, stepping out into the hallway to find Detective Miller. He was standing near the nurse’s station, barking orders into his radio as state troopers coordinated roadblocks around the quarry region.
“Miller,” I called out. “I know where the ledger is.”
Miller turned, his eyes widening. Ten minutes later, we were in the back of Miller’s unmarked sedan, ripping through the city streets toward the hospital parking garage where my truck was parked.
I unlocked my truck, pulled the giant brown bear from the back seat, and used a pocketknife from Miller’s glove compartment to slice open the seam along the bear’s spine. Pulling aside handfuls of synthetic white stuffing, my fingers hit something hard and rectangular.
I pulled out a thick, leather-bound blue notebook.
Inside the front cover were rows of meticulously handwritten ledger entries, bank routing numbers, account passwords, and offshore corporate names. But tucked into the back pocket of the notebook was something even more critical: a small, black USB security key and a folded piece of paper written in Elena’s familiar, elegant cursive.
Miller unfolded the paper under the dome light of the car and read it aloud:
“If you are reading this, Julian has realized I know the truth. He is not Julian Ross. He is a monster who has spent the last two years poisoning my life and stealing from my father’s legacy. I have encrypted all his personal files, his burn phone logs, and the tracking software he installed on my vehicle onto this drive. He cannot access the funds without this key. If I am taken, look for the cabin on Lake Oconee—he purchased it under the name Thomas Drake six months ago. That is where he takes his victims.”
Miller looked up from the note, his jaw set in a grim line. “Lake Oconee is right next to the slate quarries where his car was just pinged.”
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“She’s alive,” I said, the realization hitting me like a lightning bolt. “He can’t kill her until he gets this key and the passwords in this book. That’s why he took her!”
“We have his location,” Miller said, reaching for his radio. “And now we have his motive. SWAT is moving in.”
