Nick stopped breathing.
A shadow appeared behind him.
Allison.
She looked at the screen.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"She sent them."
Nick turned.
"What?"
"She sent those men."
Allison stared at the email.
"She did this to our baby."
Nick closed the laptop.
He reached for his wife's hand.
"We're going to find out exactly what happened."
The Investigation
By sunrise, Nick had stopped being a grieving father and become an investigator.
He contacted an old college friend who worked in satellite imagery.
Within hours, they had aerial images of Oakridge Drive from the previous seventy-two hours.
Nick compared them with traffic-camera footage.
Frame by frame.
The black pickup appeared.
It entered the neighborhood at 3:17 p.m.
It remained outside the Grace residence for less than six minutes.
Then it left.
The license plate had been partially covered.
But not completely.
A few digits were visible.
Enough.
The truck was registered to Dave Thompson.
Former private security guard.
Former employee of a regional security company.
Fired after a physical altercation with a teenager.
Nick kept digging.
A second name appeared.
Ken Rudolph.
Former associate of Thompson.