CHAPTER THIRTEEN F: THE PHONE CALL

The first call Martin made to Helen after contacting investigators lasted less than three minutes.
An official arranged the conversation and explained that neither person should discuss evidence or other witnesses.
Helen answered on the second ring.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
“Are you safe?” Helen finally asked.
“I’m somewhere safe,” Martin replied.
Helen began crying.
“I thought they killed you.”
Martin closed his eyes.
“I thought they might hurt you.”
Helen asked where he was.
He said he could not tell her yet.
She apologized for lying to the police.
Martin told her they would need to discuss that later.
“I don’t know what our marriage looks like after this,” he said.
Helen said she understood.
Before the call ended, Martin asked about Daniel.
Helen told him her brother was still working and had been frightened by the disappearance.
Martin asked her to tell Daniel he was sorry.
Then the official signaled that the call had to end.
Helen held the silent phone for a long time afterward.
She had spent months waiting for Martin’s voice, but hearing it did not make the choices she had made disappear.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN G: THE THING MARTIN KEPT

Martin carried a small notebook through the weeks he spent moving between towns.
He wrote down bus schedules, motel names, and the dates of conversations he feared forgetting.
The notebook also contained a list of people he wanted to contact when it was safe.
Helen’s name appeared first.
Daniel’s name came next, followed by Mark and Joel Benton.
When Beth Nolan asked why Mark was on the list, Martin described their brief conversation beside the blue pickup.
“He didn’t know what I was trying to tell him,” Martin said.
“But he listened.”
Beth asked whether Martin wanted Mark contacted immediately.
Martin said he preferred to wait until the investigators had reviewed the evidence.
He was afraid that approaching Mark too soon would draw attention to the house across the street.
Beth agreed to discuss the timing with the inspectors.
Martin turned to a fresh page and wrote down the questions he hoped to answer in his statement.
He wanted to know who had ordered the false routes and why Simon had been allowed into the dispatch office.
He also wanted to know whether any patients had been harmed because the vans were used for other purposes.
The last question troubled him most.
He had repaired vehicles because he believed reliable transportation mattered to people who could not drive themselves.
The idea that his work had been used to disguise a fraud made him feel responsible even when the investigators told him the scheme was not his creation.