The spilled milk pooled around the heels of my leather work boots, cold and rancid against the rubber soles.

I stepped farther out into the hallway, pulling the door to Room 314 shut behind me so Ava wouldn't hear.

"Where is she?" I asked, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper.

"Mount Rogers," Vance said, tapping the folder against his leg. "State Police found Emily's silver sedan abandoned at a scenic overlook three miles from the Holloway family parcel. The engine was cold. She hiked the rest of the way in on foot. She's inside the cabin."

"Did they arrest her?"

"Not yet," Vance said, his jaw tightening. "It's an off-grid cabin on a twenty-acre wooded plot, surrounded by federal forest land. The terrain is brutal, and the weather just rolled in—fog, freezing rain, zero visibility. The tactical unit from Grayson County is setting up a perimeter, but they can't breach until sunrise without risking her slipping through the tree line in the dark."

"She's armed, isn't she?"

Vance opened the file folder and pulled out a printout from the Department of Criminal Justice Services.

"Her maiden name is Patricia Mae Holloway. But ten years ago, in Oregon, she went by Patricia Vance—no relation to me, thank God. She was engaged to a timber heir named Marcus Vance."

My stomach clenched. "What happened to him?"

"Drowned in a lake during a weekend fishing trip," Vance read, his voice grim. "The autopsy found elevated levels of diphenhydramine in his system—Benadryl. Enough to make him pass out in the water. It was ruled an accidental drowning. Patricia collected a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar payout from his accidental death insurance policy."

"She did this before," I breathed, horror rising in my throat.

"She did," Vance confirmed. "And three years before that, an elderly woman in Idaho who Patricia worked for as a private caregiver passed away from 'heart failure,' leaving Patricia her entire estate, including a house and a vintage jewelry collection. The local police never connected the dots because she changed states, changed her surname, and kept a low profile."

"Until she found Emily."

"Until she found your family," Vance corrected. "She targeted Emily because Emily was trusting, generous, and had a high-earning husband. Patricia orchestrated this entire charade for two years. She didn't just stumble into your life, David. She hunted your family."

I looked at the folder, at the old mugshot of Patricia from an Oregon shoplifting charge fifteen years ago. Her eyes were cold, dead, empty. A true predator wearing the skin of a suburban mother.

"She's cornered," I said. "She knows it's over."

"That's what makes her dangerous," Vance replied. "She has nothing left to lose. But there's a problem."

"What problem?"

Vance pulled out a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket. "The local sheriff ran the cabin's registry. The property doesn't belong to a half-sister. Brenda Holloway died five years ago in a nursing home. Patricia owns the deed. And three weeks ago, she had sixty gallons of heating oil and four hundred pounds of dry goods delivered up there."

The implication hit me like an electric shock.

"She wasn't running there to hide from the police tonight," I whispered. "She was setting up an escape hatch weeks ago. She already had an exit strategy."

"Yes," Vance nodded. "And here's the worst part. Her phone pinged a cell tower near the cabin twenty minutes ago. She didn't call a lawyer. She sent a text message to your personal cell phone."

I froze. I pulled my phone from my pocket. In the chaos of the ER, I hadn't looked at my notifications.

There was one unread message from an unknown number, sent at 5:12 AM:

*David. You took my children. You ruined my life. Did you really think you could lock me out of my own future? Look in the trunk of your SUV. Under the spare tire. I left a little surprise for your morning commute.*

My blood ran instantly cold.