Chapter 6 - THE SECOND PHONE
Police returned to the hidden room with a search warrant.
The first sweep focused on safety and obvious evidence. The second was forensic.
Behind one loose baseboard, investigators found a charging cable.
USB-C.
No device.
Dust patterns suggested something rectangular had sat on the narrow shelf beside it.
A phone.
Tilda remembered hearing one ring.
Ramona’s personal phone had been with her when police arrived.
So there had likely been another.
Investigators asked Ramona.
She denied it.
Then her carrier records showed a second line paid by Northcross Interiors.
Number registered to a generic business profile.
The line had been active for eleven months and shut off the morning after Elsie was rescued.
No device recovered.
Who had Ramona been calling?
Mostly Cassandra Vale.
Evan Rusk.
An attorney named Celia Markham.
And a commercial real-estate broker named Owen Pike.
No lover.
No dramatic affair.
Business.
That almost made it worse.
Celia Markham represented Northcross Interiors on corporate matters. She produced engagement records showing Ramona had asked about buying a small office building through a special-purpose company.
Price:
$3.4 million.
Northcross did not have that money.
Planned financing:
$900,000 down payment.
Commercial loan for the rest.
Where would the down payment come from?
Ramona told Markham:
Expected consulting revenue.
From whom?
“Hearthwell and family-office work.”
I stared.
Northcross had received only $38,000 so far.
But draft projections expected more than $1 million over the next year.
From child-care consulting tied to Elsie’s trust.
There.
A financial incentive.
Still not central answer.
Then Owen Pike’s emails.
He had shown Ramona the building.
She planned to convert it into a boutique family-wellness center.
Brand name:
Hearthwell House.
Cassandra would operate staffing.
Ramona would own real estate.
The business plan projected Keats Family Office as the “anchor client.”
I almost laughed.
One four-year-old child was going to become the anchor client for a million-dollar care business built by my wife.
Naomi raised one hand. “Projection is not payment.”
“I know.”
“Say it.”
“She had not stolen a million dollars.”
“Good.”
But she had been building the mechanism.
Then the second phone cloud backup appeared through a warrant served on the provider.
Messages.
Lots of them.
Ramona to Cassandra:
Landon never reads household reimbursement details.
True.
Cassandra:
What if Hawthorne asks for diagnoses?
Ramona:
We’re not billing medical treatment. We’re billing household support.
Technically clever.
Then:
Need Level Two before school year.
Cassandra:
Will he sign?
Ramona:
He already has, effectively.
He had not.
Then Evan Rusk:
Mr. Keats should confirm representative change directly.
Ramona:
He’s in London. I have his authorization device.
Rusk:
That is not the same as direct confirmation.
Good.
He knew enough to hesitate.
Then Ramona:
He gave me access to household matters.
Not false broadly.
But not a signature.
Then one message stopped me.
Cassandra:
What happens if Elsie tells him about the room?
Ramona:
She won’t.
Timestamp:
Four days before my Chicago trip.
So Cassandra knew about “the room.”
What did she think it was?
Investigators interviewed her again.
Her answer:
“A sensory retreat.”
“Did you know it locked?”
“No.”
“Did you know Elsie was placed there as punishment?”
“No.”
“Why did you ask whether Elsie would tell Landon?”
Cassandra cried.
“Because Ramona said he didn’t understand modern behavioral strategies and would overreact.”
Maybe true.
Maybe self-protection.
Then another message.
RAMONA:
Tilda is the real problem. Once she is gone, Elsie’s story becomes only Elsie’s story.
My hands tightened.
That explained the attempts to make Tilda quit.
A four-year-old was easy to call imaginative.
A housekeeper was a witness.
Then the final recovered message from the second phone, sent fifteen minutes before I arrived home unexpectedly:
RAMONA TO CASSANDRA:
She found the black key. I need tonight to fix this.
My daughter had been locked behind a wall because she found the one piece of hardware that could connect Ramona to forged family-office approvals.
And according to the next line, Ramona expected me to remain in Chicago until tomorrow.
May you like
I had come home twenty hours early.
If I had not, nobody could tell me where Elsie would have spent the night.
