Part 2 — The Phone in the Kitchen
Lydia pointed toward the kitchen.
Her little hand was shaking.
“The phone,” she whispered.
I looked at the deputy.
“What phone?”
“The one Daddy told Mommy never to answer.”
The deputy immediately stood.
“Where is it?”
Lydia pointed again.
“On the kitchen floor.”
I moved before I could think.
The kitchen looked as though someone had torn through it.
One chair had been knocked sideways.
A glass lay shattered beneath the table.
Cassidy’s purse was open near the refrigerator.
And beside it sat a black cellphone I’d never seen before.
I picked it up.
The screen was cracked.
There were three missed calls from the same number.
Then another call came through.
Unknown Number.
I answered.
“Hello?”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then a man’s voice said:
“Who is this?”
“Cassidy’s father.”
The voice went silent.
Then:
“Where is she?”
“She’s being taken into surgery.”
Another pause.
“Then you need to listen carefully.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything.”
“Then who are you?”
“You need to find the phone she hid.”
I looked down at the device in my hand.
“This phone?”
“No.”
My stomach tightened.
“There is another one.”
The call ended.
I stared at the screen.
The deputy walked over.
“What happened?”
I told him everything.
He took the phone and examined it.
“Password protected.”
“Can you open it?”
“Maybe. But I’d rather preserve it first.”
Lydia tugged on my jacket.
“Papa?”
I knelt beside her.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“Mommy hid something.”
“What did she hide?”
“A little box.”
“Where?”
Lydia pointed toward the pantry.
“Behind the cans.”
The deputy and I exchanged a look.
I opened the pantry.
Rows of canned food filled the shelves.
Then I noticed one section that looked strangely disturbed.
I moved the cans aside.
Behind them was a small metal box.
Locked.
My heart started pounding.
“Do you know where the key is?” I asked.
Lydia nodded.
“Mommy kept it on her necklace.”
Cassidy’s necklace.
I remembered it immediately.
She’d worn it every day since her mother died.
I found it hanging from the side of a kitchen cabinet.
The key was attached.
I unlocked the box.
Inside was an envelope.
My name was written across it.
Dad.
My hands went cold.
I opened it.
The first page was a bank statement.
Then another.
Then photographs.
Dozens of them.
Trent meeting strangers outside bars.
Trent entering a casino.
Trent handing envelopes to a man near a truck stop.
And finally, a photograph of Cassidy.
She was standing outside her workplace.
Someone had been photographing her from across the street.
The deputy studied the pictures.
“Someone was following her.”
I nodded.
Then I found the last page.
Cassidy had written it by hand.
Dad, I don’t know who I can trust anymore.
I swallowed.
The next sentence was worse.
Trent isn’t just gambling. He’s moving money for someone.
The deputy looked at me.
“What kind of money?”
I kept reading.
I found transfers from our account to a company called Black Ridge Logistics. I don’t know why.
Black Ridge.
The name meant nothing to me.
Until I saw the last line.
Dad, if something happens to me, ask about the accident at Rig 17.
My breathing stopped.
Rig 17.
Thirty-four years on oil rigs in Montana had taught me to remember certain numbers.
I remembered Rig 17.
I remembered the fire.
I remembered the three men who never made it out.
And I remembered the official report.
A gas leak.
An accident.
Case closed.
But suddenly another memory returned.
One man had survived.
A young worker named Trent Walker.
My son-in-law.
I stared at the page.
“No,” I whispered.
The deputy looked at me.
“What?”
I couldn’t answer.
Because I had just realized that Trent had known me long before he married Cassidy.
And he had known exactly what kind of work I had done.
The phone in my pocket buzzed.
A new message had arrived.
I opened it.
There was no text.
Only a photograph.
It showed Trent standing beside an old oil rig.
Rig 17.
And beside him was another man.
A man I recognized immediately.
My former supervisor.
The man who had signed the accident report thirty-four years ago.
My blood ran cold.
The deputy looked over my shoulder.
“Do you know him?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
Before I could answer, the phone rang again.
The same unknown number.
I answered.
This time the voice was different.
An older man.
Calm.
Almost amused.
“You finally found the box.”
“Who are you?”
“You used to call me Mr. Walker.”
My heart stopped.
The deputy reached for the phone.
The voice continued.
“You thought Rig 17 was an accident.”
I couldn’t speak.
“It wasn’t.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the black screen.
The deputy looked at me.
“Mr. Walker, who was that?”
I slowly lowered the phone.
“My former boss.”
He frowned.
“Why would your former boss know about your daughter’s situation?”
I looked toward the ambulance disappearing down the road.
Then toward Lydia.
Then back at the photographs.
Because suddenly the truth was becoming impossible to ignore.
Trent’s violence wasn’t an isolated family problem.
Someone had been waiting thirty-four years to settle an old score.
And Cassidy had discovered something she was never supposed to find.
Something connected her husband to the deadliest night of my life.
Then my phone buzzed one more time.
A final message appeared:
Your daughter is alive. But if you want her and the baby to stay alive, bring me the Rig 17 records before sunrise.
