Chapter 4: The Girl Who Disappeared
Emma Reyes lived in a small house on a quiet street in Baton Rouge, the kind of street where the neighbors knew each other's cars and a stranger parking out front would be noticed within ten minutes.
Mitchell drove.
I sat in the passenger seat.
We didn't talk much on the way.
"She might not open the door," Mitchell said as we turned onto her street.
"I know."
"She might tell us to leave."
"I know that too."
"And if she does?"
"Then we leave," I said.
"We don't pressure her.
We don't need her to start.
But if she's willing to talk, what she knows could change everything."
Mitchell parked half a block down.
We walked to the door.
I knocked.
Nothing for a long moment.
Then a curtain moved in the front window.
"Ms.
Reyes," I said, loud enough to carry through the door.
"My name is David Miller.
My daughter is in the hospital in the same city where you went to school.
I'm not law enforcement.
I'm not a lawyer.
I'm a father.
I'd like to talk to you, if you're willing.
You can say no.
I'll leave either way."
Silence.
Then the sound of a deadbolt turning.
The woman who opened the door was young — barely twenty — but she stood with the careful stillness of someone who had learned to read a room before entering it.
Her eyes went to Mitchell first, then to me.
"How did you find me?" she asked.
"I have people who are good at finding things."
"That's not reassuring."
"No," I agreed.
"I don't imagine it is."
She studied me for another moment.
Then she stepped back from the door.
The inside of the house was neat and sparse.
A textbook open on the kitchen table.
A half-finished cup of coffee going cold.
She sat across from us and wrapped both hands around the mug.
"Your daughter," she said.
"What's her name?"
"Nora."
Something moved across her face.
"Is she going to be okay?"
"Her jaw was broken in six places.
She'll need surgery.
But she's alive."
Emma Reyes set the mug down.
Her hands were steady but her jaw was tight.
"Wyatt," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"All three of them.
But yes.
Wyatt Holbrook organized it."
"Because she reported him."
"Yes."
She was quiet for a moment.
"I reported him too."
"I know."
"And then my parents got a phone call from a man named Warren Fitch.
And then there was money.
And my father said — " She stopped.
Pressed her lips together.
"My father said that nothing good would come from fighting people like that.
That we should take the money and move on.
That I should be grateful it wasn't worse."
The word landed in the room and stayed there.
"Were you?" I asked.
"Was I what?"
"Grateful."
Her eyes came up to mine.
"I withdrew from the university.
I deleted everything.
I moved here and I started over and I haven't said those three names out loud in fourteen months." She paused.
"Does that answer your question?"
"It does."
"What do you want from me?"
"I want to know if you'd be willing to make a statement.
Not to the police — not yet.
To a federal attorney I trust.
Someone outside this city, outside the reach of the Holbrook family's connections."
"And if I say yes?"
"Then your statement becomes part of a pattern.
Two victims, same perpetrators, same cover-up mechanism.
That changes what prosecutors can do."
"And if I say no?"
"Then I drive back to the hospital and I find another way."
She looked at the textbook on the table.
Pre-law.
She had kept studying.
Even after everything, she had kept going.
"Fitch told my father that if we ever spoke publicly, the money would need to be returned," she said.
"And that there were other consequences he didn't specify."
"That's a threat," Mitchell said quietly.
"I know what it is."
I leaned forward slightly.
"Ms.
Reyes.
Warren Fitch has helped the Holbrook family seal at least three separate cases.
When those cases open — and they will open — his name will be on every document.
He will have his own problems.
His threats will be the least of his concerns."
She was quiet for a long time.
Then she said, "I want to talk to the federal attorney directly.
Before I agree to anything."
"I can arrange that."
"And I want it in writing that my family is protected."
"Yes."
She picked up the coffee mug again.
Looked at it.
Set it back down.
"Nora," she said.
"Is she scared?"
"She hasn't been able to speak yet.
Her jaw is wired shut."
Emma Reyes nodded slowly, the way someone nods when they already know exactly what that silence feels like.
"Tell her," she said, "that it gets quieter.
Eventually."
I didn't answer.
I didn't trust my voice.
On the drive back, Mitchell said nothing for the first forty miles.
Then: "She's going to do it."
"Yes," I said.
"How do you know?"
"Because she kept the textbook."
My phone rang.
Bishop.
"Commander, we have a problem.
May you like
Pruitt made a call twenty minutes ago.
He knows someone has been asking about the private server."
