Chapter 4 - The Voice in the Bear
Detective Vance didn't speak. He pulled a digital camera from his tactical vest and began photographing the notebook, page by page, his face a mask of cold fury.
"She's a black widow, David," Vance said, his voice flat. "A professional sociopath. She didn't stumble into your grief; she targeted it. When Emily was sick, who recommended the doctors?"
"Patricia," I answered, my mind racing backward through fourteen months of manufactured reality. "She said she had an uncle who was a cardiologist in Philadelphia. She brought Emily holistic teas, herbal supplements, said they would help with Emily's sudden 'palpitations'."
"And you never suspected a thing?"
"Why would I?" I yelled, my voice cracking in the empty, hollowed-out room. "They grew up together! They were roommates in college! Emily was the godmother to Patricia's miscarriage! I loved my wife, Detective! I worked sixty hours a week to give them a life, and when Emily got sick, Patricia was the only person who stepped up while I was drowning!"
"I'm not blaming you, son," Vance said gently, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. "People like Patricia study empathy like a foreign language. They learn the vocabulary so they can use it as a scalpel. She saw a comfortable home, a four-million-dollar life insurance policy, a grieving man, and two vulnerable children. She saw a retirement plan."
"We have to find her," I said, my teeth grinding together. "She's out there. She's driving somewhere with our money, with my wife's jewelry—"
"Detective!"
Another voice shouted from the master bedroom. It was Officer Miller, holding an evidence bag containing a dark brown leather journal and a small, worn pink teddy bear.
My heart hitched. "That's Lucas’s bear. Emily gave it to him the day he was born."
"Look at the stitching along the back," Miller said, handing the bag to Vance. "It's been cut open and resewn with nylon thread."
Vance pulled out a pair of latex tweezers, carefully parted the rough, amateur stitching along the spine of the stuffed bear, and reached inside. He pulled out a small, rectangular piece of plastic.
A digital voice-activated dictaphone.
"Battery is still showing one bar," Vance noted, inspecting the tiny LCD screen. "Looks like it was recording continuously until the memory card filled up. Let's see what we've got."
Vance plugged a pair of standard headphones into the device, listened for thirty seconds, and his complexion went completely gray.
He unplugged the headphones and hit the external speaker button.
A crackle of static filled the sterile air of the bedroom. Then, the sound of labored, shallow breathing echoed into the room.
*"Patricia... please..."*
It was Emily.
The sound of my dead wife's voice ripped through the room like a physical blow. I stumbled against the doorframe, clutching my chest. It sounded weak, raspy, exactly how she had sounded during her final twenty-four hours.
*"Patricia... call David... my chest hurts so much... I can't breathe..."*
Then came Patricia’s voice. Smooth. Calm. Free of any urgency.
*"David is at a business dinner, Emily. You know how important this contract is to him. Drink the chamomile. It will settle your arrhythmia."*
*"It tastes like metal... Patricia, please... call 911... Lucas is crying..."*
*"Lucas is fine. Lucas will have a wonderful mother. Now drink it, Emily. Drink it all, or I'll tell David you've been taking pills behind his back. I'll make sure he takes the children away from you."*
A sound of choked weeping. The sound of a ceramic mug scraping against a nightstand.
Then, Patricia’s voice again, closer to the microphone, whispering with terrifying clarity:
*"You always had everything, Emily. The handsome husband. The perfect children. The big house in the cul-de-sac. Did you really think God meant for you to keep it all forever? Don't worry. I'll take very good care of David. And when he's broken enough... he won't even notice when he follows you."*
The recording ended with the sound of Emily gasping for air, followed by the heavy, deliberate thud of a bedroom door clicking shut.
I fell to my knees. The world vanished behind a wall of blind, murderous grief. Emily hadn't died of an accidental cardiac arrest. She had been murdered in our bed, begging for help, while I was twenty miles away in an office building, believing her friend was taking care of her.
"David," Vance said, his voice shaking with rare emotion. "Get up."
I didn't move. I couldn't. The floor felt like quicksand.
"Get up, David!" Vance ordered, grabbing my arm and hauling me to my feet. His eyes were blazing. "Your wife didn't die in vain, and your children aren't going to lose their father tonight. We have her on tape. This isn't attempted murder anymore. This is premeditated First-Degree Capital Murder. She cannot hide from this."
"Where is she going, Vance?" I snarled, wiping the hot tears from my face with the back of my hand. "Where would she go?"
"She emptied the safe," Vance said, thinking aloud, his detective instincts taking over. "She has cash. She has Emily's car. But she doesn't have her passport—we found it in her vanity drawer. She can't leave the country through an airport."
"Her sister," I blurted out, a sudden memory piercing through the fog of rage. "Two years ago, Patricia mentioned an estranged half-sister who owned an off-grid hunting cabin up near Mount Rogers. In the Blue Ridge Mountains."
Vance’s eyes narrowed. "What's the sister's name?"
"Brenda. Brenda Holloway."
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Vance whipped out his phone and barked into the receiver. "Dispatch! Run a database query for Brenda Holloway, property records in Grayson County, Virginia. Specifically any rural parcels or hunting cabins near Mount Rogers. Move!"
***
