The line went quiet.
“Then who did I let into my living room?” she asked.
I had to sit down on my office floor.
At 8:40 that night, Colleen called from Florida. Someone had told her.
“Don’t go digging into things you don’t understand, Russell.”
“Including you?” I said.
She hung up.
On Monday morning, investigators served a warrant on the cottage. I waited in my truck at the curb. Forty minutes later, Sandra called.
“Russell,” she said. “The compartment is empty.”
The panel was there. The star still clicked. But the pouches, the folders, the shoebox, and Laura’s medallion were all gone.
Our neighborhood has a gated entrance with a visitor log. It showed a white van registered to Whitmore Estate Services entering at 2:12 p.m. on Saturday, while Mason and I were at the movies.
The driver was Curtis Whitmore, who was supposedly in Destin.
The person who’d authorized his entry with her gate code was Gloria.
