Chapter 6
The tip came from a bartender in Corpus Christi.
He’d seen a man matching Ryan’s description at a beach bar three nights earlier. The man had been drinking alone, flashing a lot of cash, talking about how he was going to “leave all his problems behind” and move to Panama.
The FBI checked the local hotels. They found a room registered to a man named Richard Miller. The credit card used to pay for it was one of the fake cards from Vanessa’s USB drive.
Ryan was in Corpus.
Crawford flew down that night. He worked with the FBI agents on the ground. They staked out the hotel. They watched Ryan come and go. He was with a woman—not Vanessa. A twenty-two-year-old college student he’d met at the bar. He’d told her he was a retired Navy SEAL who’d inherited a fortune from his dead parents.
Same old lies.
But they didn’t arrest him.
“Not yet,” Crawford told me over the phone. “We need to catch him with the fake passports. With the offshore account information. If we arrest him now, he’ll make bail. He’ll run again. We need enough evidence to put him away for life.”
“How long will that take?”
“A week. Maybe two. He’s planning to leave the country on the twenty-third. He bought a one-way ticket to Panama City from Houston. We’ll arrest him at the airport. No chance of escape.”
Two weeks.
I had to wait two weeks while Ryan lived it up in Corpus, drinking, lying to another girl, planning to run away with my money.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to drive down there myself and drag him out of that hotel room by his hair.
But I had to be patient. For Lila. For Linda. For Clara and her kids.
The days dragged by.
The interview had changed everything. People brought us meals. They sent cards and letters of support. A group of moms from Lila’s old school organized a playdate for her and Mia and Jake. The kids started smiling again. Lila stopped crying herself to sleep.
But I couldn’t sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Ryan’s face in the video. I heard him laughing about killing my parents.
One night, I was sitting on the porch swing at two in the morning, drinking coffee, when I saw a car turn onto the gravel drive. Not the FBI cars. Not Crawford’s SUV.
A beat-up old pickup truck.
It stopped in front of the house. The driver’s door opened.
Ryan got out.
My blood turned to ice.
I stood up slowly. My hand went to the gun Crawford had given me—a small 9mm he’d said was “just in case.” I’d never fired a gun in my life. But I knew how to use it. Crawford had made sure of that.
Ryan walked up the porch steps. He looked terrible. His hair was a mess. He had a black eye. His clothes were dirty.
“Emily,” he said. His voice was hoarse. “I need to talk to you.”
“Get off my property before I shoot you.”
He held up his hands. “I’m not here to hurt you. I swear. I just want to see Lila. Please. Five minutes. That’s all I ask.”
“You lost the right to see her when you slapped me in front of your mistress. When you stole forty million dollars from me. When you killed my parents.”
His face twisted. “That video was taken out of context. I didn’t kill your parents. It was an accident. I was just talking big. You know how I get.”
“I know exactly how you get.” I raised the gun. My hand was shaking, but I kept it pointed at his chest. “Last chance. Leave or I shoot.”
For a second, I thought he was going to lunge at me. His eyes were wild. Crazy.
Then he stepped back.
“You’ll regret this, Emily. You think you’ve won? You haven’t seen anything yet. I’m going to take everything from you. Just like you took everything from me.”
He turned and walked back to his truck. He peeled out, throwing gravel all over the lawn.
I stood there for ten minutes, the gun still raised, before my legs gave out. I fell onto the swing, sobbing.
Clara ran out onto the porch. She’d heard everything.
“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“He was here.” I gasped for air. “He was right here. How did he find us? Crawford said this place was a secret.”
Crawford showed up an hour later. He was furious.
“I don’t know how he found the address. Only four people knew about it. Me, you, Clara, and my assistant. I’ll find out who leaked it. I swear to God.”
“Forget that. He threatened me. He said he’s going to take everything from me. What does that mean?”
Crawford’s face was grim. “I don’t know. But we’re going to move you. Tonight. We have another safe house outside Fort Worth. More security. No one knows about it. Not even my assistant.”
We packed in the middle of the night. The kids were confused, but they didn’t complain. Jake held Mia’s hand. Lila carried her rabbit. We left the stone house and drove two hours north to a small ranch hidden in the hills.
The ranch was surrounded by a ten-foot fence with barbed wire on top. There were four armed guards on duty twenty-four hours a day. Dogs patrolled the perimeter.
“No one is getting in here,” Crawford said. “I promise you that.”
But I didn’t feel safe.
Ryan knew where I lived once. He could find me again.
The next morning, I got a text from an unknown number.
It was a photo.
Lila. Taken that morning, through the kitchen window of the ranch. She was eating cereal at the table.
The text below it read: YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE.
I screamed.
Clara ran into the room. She saw the photo. Her face went white.
“He’s here. He’s watching us.”
Crawford called the guards. They searched the entire property. They found footprints in the mud behind the house. A cigarette butt. A pair of binoculars hidden in a tree.
Ryan had been there. He’d been standing fifty feet from my daughter while she ate her breakfast.
The FBI moved up the timeline.
They weren’t going to wait for the airport. They were going to arrest Ryan that night.
They had a lead on where he was staying. A cheap motel on the edge of Fort Worth. He was using the name Paul Carter.
At ten that night, the FBI raided the motel.
I waited by the phone, my heart in my throat. Every minute felt like an hour.
At eleven, Crawford called.
“We got him.”
I collapsed onto the couch. Tears of relief poured down my face.
“Is he in custody?”
“He’s in the back of a squad car right now. He’s being booked into the Dallas County jail. No bail. Federal hold. He’s not going anywhere ever again.”
Clara hugged me. The kids, who’d been asleep, woke up and came into the room. They saw us crying.
“Did they get him?” Jake asked.
I nodded. “They got him, baby. It’s over.”
May you like
But it wasn’t over.
Not even close.
