“Because last time I mentioned him, he knew before I got home.”

Her answer was not proof of corruption, but it explained why she feared being overheard.

I told her that the police already had the threatening letter and the footage.

Then I asked the question she had avoided since the first morning.

“What happened to Mara?”

Iris looked toward her own house.

“I helped her leave town.”

Chapter 9: The Woman at the Bus Depot

Iris claimed that Mara Voss had not been abducted at the rest area.

According to her, Mara abandoned her car because somebody was watching the roads out of town.

Margaret drove her to a bus depot in another county.

Iris waited there with a borrowed coat and a ticket purchased under a different name.

I listened without interrupting, but I did not accept the account as established fact.

The original disappearance report was eighteen years old, and Iris had already lied to police about entering my yard.

She understood my hesitation.

“You don’t have to believe me,” she said.

“I need something I can verify.”

Iris produced a paper receipt from a storage facility in Asheville.

Its date matched the week of Mara’s disappearance.

The name printed on it was Ruth Bell, Margaret’s younger sister.

I photographed the receipt and asked permission to share it with the detective assigned to the old case.

Iris agreed.

“Is Mara alive?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“When did you last hear from her?”

“Six years ago.”

“Why did you say your daughter was in danger instead of telling me this?”

“Because Leah found one of Mara’s letters.”

Iris swallowed.

“It described Arthur Vale’s involvement with the Henley shipments.”

She said Leah had confronted her about it and threatened to take the letter to the press.

The following week, a stranger appeared outside Leah’s apartment.

The man waited in a parked car for two evenings before disappearing.

Leah had since moved home.

Iris wanted the missing notebook because it might confirm Mara’s allegations.

But if Vale reached it first, she believed he would destroy both the records and the people who knew about them.

“You could have asked me for help,” I said.

“You were a stranger.”

“I still am.”

She accepted the answer without arguing.

I looked back at the house I had bought to give my daughter a stable place to sleep.

It was hard not to resent the strangers who had turned its walls into their battlefield.