Ortiz’s face softened. “She has her own case. Her own family. We won’t forget that.”
That promise mattered more than I expected. I had spent weeks imagining revenge. Now I wanted something harder and less satisfying: the truth, even if it arrived slowly, and even if it did not give anyone back the years already stolen.
- The Search Warrant
The first update arrived after midnight. Investigators had secured a warrant for the abandoned farm. The property sat beyond a narrow county road, surrounded by fields that had not been harvested in years. The farmhouse had a sagging porch and a rusted weather vane. A neighbor remembered trucks arriving late one summer and leaving before sunrise.
Ortiz did not let me hear the details until the next morning. “The cellar entrance was covered by shelving,” she said. “We found a locked storage compartment beneath the stairs.”
My fingers tightened around the edge of the table. “Mara’s belongings?”
