The cabin search continued through the night.
Travis learned about it in fragments.
A phone call.
A message.
A photograph forwarded to Hale.
Investigators did not permit him to see everything, and Hale repeatedly reminded him that evidence belonged to the case now, not to his anger.
By two in the morning, nobody at Melissa's house had much energy left for anger anyway.
Bethany slept on the living-room sofa.
Travis remained upstairs beside Kaylee.
His daughter occupied the center of the guest bed with the territorial confidence of a child who had never paid a mortgage.
Travis sat in a chair beside her.
He watched her breathe.
Every so often she moved one foot beneath the blanket.
He thought about Kurt's notebook entry.
BETH / DAYCARE / AUTO ISSUE.
A stranger had turned Bethany's exhaustion into a prospecting note.
Travis could not absolve her choices.
She had lied.
She had forged his signature.
She had helped keep Kaylee from him.
Those facts remained.
But another fact existed beside them.
Someone had studied her at a vulnerable point and deliberately moved closer.
Both could be true.
At 3:18, Hale knocked softly.
Travis stepped into the hallway.
"They found your tub."
He closed the bedroom door behind him.
"What's inside?"
"Copies."
"Of?"
"Deed. Tax assessment. Some social media printouts. Bethany's employment information."
Travis frowned.
"Social media?"
"Photographs."
"Whose?"
"Yours. Bethany's. Kaylee's."
His stomach tightened.
"What else?"
"Army-related material."
"From my house?"
"Some probably public. Some not."
"What isn't?"
"There's a copy of an LES."
Travis swore quietly.
That meant access to his personal records.
"Anything from my father's house?"
"Not obviously."
"Red folder?"
"No."
"Darren?"
"No."
"Kurt?"
"No."
Hale hesitated.
"What?"
"There's a photograph investigators want Bethany to look at."
"Of what?"
"Your house."
"Why?"
"Because of when it was taken."
They went downstairs.
Alvarez had returned.
He placed a digital image on his tablet.
The photograph showed Travis's house from across the road.
Winter.
Bare trees.
Snow residue along the ditch.
Travis stared.
"That's old."
"How old?"
He examined the porch.
A Christmas wreath hung on the door.
"December."
"Which December?"
Travis looked closer.
Kaylee's small red sled leaned against the porch.
"Last year."
Alvarez nodded.
"Metadata on the original file indicates December seventeenth."
Travis looked at Bethany, who had awakened.
"When did you meet Kurt?"
"April."
The room went quiet.
Four months.
Kurt had photographed the house four months before supposedly meeting Bethany by accident at the grocery store.
Her face lost color.
"Maybe somebody else took it."
"Possible," Alvarez said.
"Could metadata be wrong?"
"Possible."
But nobody believed coincidence was becoming more likely.
Travis enlarged the photograph.
Something stood at the edge of the frame.
A vehicle.
Only the rear quarter visible.
Silver.
Marla's sedan?
Too little to tell.
Alvarez swiped to another image.
Travis's truck in the driveway.
Another.
Bethany carrying grocery bags.
Another.
Travis's father standing on the porch.
The old man stared at himself.
"When was that?"
"December nineteenth."
His father remembered.
"You were at Fort Sill for training," he told Travis. "I brought Kaylee's Christmas present."
Bethany sat down.
"He was watching us."
Alvarez corrected gently.
"Someone was documenting the property."
"That's watching us."
This time he did not argue.
Another photograph appeared.
Bethany and Kaylee outside daycare.
Bethany made a sound in her throat.
Travis felt his anger become something colder.
The image had been taken from inside a vehicle.
Kaylee wore her yellow winter coat.
She was holding Bethany's hand.
"December twenty."
Bethany looked at Alvarez.
"He knew where she went to daycare before he ever spoke to me."
"Apparently someone did."
"Why us?"
Nobody had the answer.
Travis looked at the notes.
TITLE SINGLE.
That was part of it.
Military homeowner.
Property titled solely to him.
Frequent absences.
Spouse at home.
Child.
Financial strain.
Kurt had not fallen into their lives.
He had selected them.
At four in the morning, Alvarez received preliminary results from the other tubs.
The pattern repeated.
Property documents.
Deployment information.
Family photographs.
Financial notes.
Copies of identification.
In some files, forged agreements.
In others, nothing had progressed beyond surveillance.
Daniel Reese's file was the oldest among those recovered.
His tub contained a photocopy of a cashier's check.
Twenty thousand dollars.
PAID 20.
Hale had been right not to assume.
But Travis's assumption had been correct.
Reese had paid Kurt.
When contacted again, Reese initially denied it.
Then investigators told him they had the check.
He admitted the truth.
He had paid twenty thousand dollars to make Kurt leave before filing the civil case.
"Why lie?" Travis asked.
Hale answered.
"Shame. Fear. Settlement terms. Maybe all three."
"But Kurt filed anyway."
"Apparently."
Reese had thought paying would end it.
Instead Kurt had returned demanding more.
That was when Reese hired counsel.
The case collapsed.
The house was stripped afterward.
"Extortion?" Travis asked.
"Potentially," Hale said.
"Say potentially one more time."
"Potentially."
He almost laughed.
By dawn, investigators had identified seven military-connected homeowners in the recovered material.
Four had experienced suspicious property disputes.
Two had reported identity theft.
One had paid Kurt.
Marcus Donovan appeared to have been the next active target.
Travis's family had been the current one.
A task force was beginning to form across jurisdictions.
That sounded impressive.
To Travis it meant more phones ringing.
More offices.
More time.
Kurt was still missing.
Darren too.
At 6:20, Melissa made coffee.
Kaylee woke and demanded pancakes.
Nobody had pancake mix.
Travis improvised with toast cut into circles.
Kaylee accepted the fraud.
Bethany sat beside her at the table.
For ten minutes they behaved almost like a family.
That illusion was more painful than open hostility.
When Kaylee finished eating, she held up a piece of toast.
"Daddy house today?"
Travis looked at Bethany.
"No, Bug."
"Tomorrow?"
"I don't know."
Kaylee frowned.
"Why?"
There was no useful explanation for a three-year-old.
"Some rooms need fixing."
"Uncle Kurt broke?"
The kitchen went silent.
Travis looked at Bethany.
"She calls him uncle?"
Bethany closed her eyes.
"I didn't teach her that."
Kaylee continued eating.
Travis forced himself to keep his voice neutral.
"Did Kurt tell you to call him Uncle Kurt?"
She nodded.
"Uncle Kurt say Daddy far."
Bethany began crying.
Travis looked at his daughter.
"What else did he say?"
Hale, entering the kitchen, immediately intervened.
"Don't question her."
Travis stopped.
She was right.
Again.
A trained child interviewer could handle anything relevant later.
Kaylee should not become another source document in an adult investigation.
Travis picked up her cup.
"More milk?"
"Chocolate."
"Negotiator."
"Chocolate."
She won.
At 7:03, Alvarez called.
A fingerprint from the cabin had produced a match.
Not Kurt.
Not Darren.
A man named Leonard Pike.
Travis had never heard the name.
Bethany had.
She nearly dropped her coffee.
"Len?"
"You know him?"
"He worked at Kaylee's daycare."
Travis stared.
"What?"
"Maintenance. Sometimes pickup traffic."
Miss Dolores's daycare.
The place where Kaylee had been photographed.
The place Bethany had withdrawn her from.
Alvarez asked Bethany for everything she remembered.
Leonard Pike had done occasional maintenance.
Fixed gates.
Changed light fixtures.
Helped direct cars during events.
He had access to the building.
Possibly enrollment paperwork.
Possibly emergency contacts.
Possibly information about parents.
Travis felt the whole case rotate.
"What if Kurt didn't find us through property records?"
Hale understood.
"What if he found military families through the daycare?"
Bethany shook her head.
"Not everyone there is military."
"He wouldn't need everyone."
Alvarez said investigators would examine the connection.
Twenty minutes later, Dolores confirmed Pike had worked there for approximately eighteen months.
He had quit suddenly.
When?
Three weeks earlier.
The same week Bethany withdrew Kaylee.
Travis felt the hair rise on his arms.
"Where is he?"
Alvarez answered.
"That's the problem."
Pike's apartment was empty.
His phone disconnected.
His last known employer had not heard from him.
Travis stared at the photograph of Kaylee outside daycare.
Kurt had been watching before April.
Pike had access to family information.
Pike's fingerprint was in the cabin.
Then Bethany remembered something.
"The grocery store."
Everyone looked at her.
"The day I met Kurt."
"What?"
"Someone spoke to me before him."
"Who?"
"I didn't know his name then."
Her face had gone pale.
"But I know it now."
"Who?"
"Len."
Travis felt his stomach drop.
"What did he say?"
"He recognized Kaylee. Said hello."
"And then?"
"He walked away."
"How long before Kurt dropped the eggs?"
Bethany stared at the table.
"Maybe thirty seconds."
The accidental meeting had not merely been planned.
Someone had apparently signaled the target.
Click here to continue reading: PART 12: The Daycare Connection Finally Explained How Kurt Found Bethany, Until a Recovered Phone Revealed Someone Had Been Feeding Him Information From Fort Sill
After Nineteen Hours on the Road, Travis Found Another Man Wearing His Robe and Answering His Front Door
Part 11 of 28
