The warrant was approved at 5:18 that evening.
Travis did not celebrate.
He was sitting on Melissa's back steps with Kaylee beside him, breaking crackers into small pieces and lining them along the wooden rail.
She called them soldiers.
Travis did not correct her formation.
Inside the kitchen, Rebecca Hale was speaking with Detective Alvarez.
Bethany had gone upstairs to shower and change clothes. Melissa was making dinner nobody seemed hungry enough to eat.
Travis's phone had not stopped vibrating.
Bank alerts.
Password attempts.
Calls from investigators.
Messages from his father.
Then, at 5:26, Kurt called.
Travis stared at the screen.
Hale came outside.
"Don't answer unless Alvarez wants it."
She called the detective.
A minute later she nodded.
"Answer. Speaker. Don't provoke. Don't threaten. Let him talk."
Travis accepted.
"Hello."
Kurt's voice was calm.
"Busy day."
Travis said nothing.
"You there?"
"Yes."
"I figured you'd have everybody running around by now."
Kaylee was still arranging crackers.
Travis moved farther down the steps.
"What do you want?"
"My things."
"Take that up with the police."
Kurt laughed.
"You think the police are on your side?"
"I think you're calling for a reason."
Silence.
Hale gave Travis an approving nod.
Kurt changed tone.
"Beth with you?"
"Why?"
"She stole from me."
Bethany appeared behind the screen door.
She heard.
Her face hardened.
"What did she steal?" Travis asked.
"Documents."
"What documents?"
"Business."
"Which business?"
"You wouldn't understand."
Travis almost smiled.
"Try me."
Kurt exhaled.
"Tell Beth to bring back what she took."
Bethany shook her head fiercely.
Travis looked at her.
"She says she doesn't have anything."
"She's lying."
"What is it?"
Another silence.
Then Kurt said, "A notebook."
Bethany's expression changed.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
Hale noticed.
So did Travis.
"You know it?" he mouthed.
Bethany nodded once.
Kurt continued.
"She took it from my bag."
Travis kept his voice steady.
"What notebook?"
"Mine."
"Helpful."
"Don't get cute."
There it was.
The controlled tone beginning to crack.
"Where is it?" Travis asked Bethany silently.
She pointed upstairs.
Melissa's house.
She had brought it.
Travis's pulse quickened.
Kurt wanted one item badly enough to call while police attention was closing around him.
That mattered.
"I don't know where your notebook is," Travis said.
"You tell Beth I'm giving her one chance."
Hale wrote something on her phone and held it up.
ASK WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
Travis did.
"What happens after one chance?"
Kurt laughed softly.
"You really want me to say something stupid on the phone, don't you?"
Smart.
Too smart.
"I'm asking."
"Tell her I know where Kaylee is."
Bethany stepped backward as if struck.
Travis's body went cold.
Kaylee remained twenty feet away, humming to herself.
He forced his voice level.
"Is that a threat?"
"No."
"Then why mention my daughter?"
"Because Beth cares about her."
Hale was already motioning toward the house.
Melissa came outside and quietly took Kaylee in.
Travis watched his daughter disappear through the door.
Kurt continued.
"Some things are bigger than houses."
Travis stared at the yard.
"Like what?"
"You'll figure it out."
"Why don't you tell me?"
"I will when Beth returns what belongs to me."
The call ended.
Travis remained still.
Hale immediately called Alvarez.
Bethany stood behind Travis.
"He knows."
"Knows what?"
"That I took it."
"What is in the notebook?"
"I don't know everything."
Travis turned.
"Stop saying that."
"I looked at part of it."
"What's in it?"
"Names."
"What names?"
"People. Addresses."
Hale ended the call and came closer.
"Bring it."
Bethany retrieved the notebook from upstairs.
It was smaller than Travis expected.
Black cover.
Elastic strap.
Ordinary enough to disappear into any backpack.
She placed it on the kitchen table.
Hale did not open it.
"Police need to handle this."
Travis looked at Bethany.
"When did you take it?"
"This morning."
"Before the laundromat?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I was packing things."
"Things for where?"
"I didn't know yet."
Travis nearly interrupted.
She corrected herself.
"I was planning to leave Kurt. I saw the notebook in his duffel."
"Why take it?"
"Because my name was in it."
Everyone went silent.
Bethany continued.
"I opened to a page with our address. Your name. My name. Dates."
"What dates?"
"Your deployment dates."
Travis felt a deep, sinking certainty.
"What else?"
"The day I met Kurt."
Hale frowned.
"How did you meet him?"
"At the grocery store."
"Randomly?"
"I thought so."
Travis closed his eyes.
Of course.
Bethany's voice weakened.
"He dropped a carton of eggs near my cart. We started talking."
Hale stared at the notebook.
"That date was written down?"
"Yes."
"Before or after?"
"I couldn't tell."
"What else?"
Bethany swallowed.
"There's a number beside every address."
"What kind of number?"
"Money."
Travis understood.
"House values?"
"Maybe."
Hale said, "Don't speculate."
Bethany nodded.
"There are initials too."
"Reese?"
"I saw DR."
Daniel Reese.
Travis and Hale looked at each other.
"Other military abbreviations?"
Bethany thought.
"Ranks."
That ended the uncertainty for Travis.
"He's selecting service members."
Hale remained careful.
"The notebook may support that, but investigators will determine it."
Travis looked at her.
"You can say it once we're not in court."
"I'm always in court."
Despite everything, Bethany gave a short laugh.
It vanished quickly.
Detective Alvarez arrived fifteen minutes later with another officer.
He photographed the notebook before touching it.
Then, wearing gloves, he opened the first page.
Nobody spoke.
Rows of handwriting filled it.
Names.
Addresses.
Numbers.
Dates.
Short notes.
DEPLOYED.
SPOUSE HOME.
TITLE SINGLE.
RETURN NOV.
Travis saw his own entry three pages in.
T. HALE.
His address.
HOUSE 286.
DEPLOY FT SILL.
BETH / DAYCARE / AUTO ISSUE.
RETURN SEPT? UNCLEAR.
His throat tightened.
Bethany whispered, "He knew before he met me."
Alvarez looked at her.
"Possibly."
But the page said enough.
Kurt had documented vulnerabilities.
Not just property.
People.
Another line appeared beneath Bethany's name.
FRUSTRATED / REENLIST.
Travis looked at her.
She began to cry.
Quietly.
"He didn't meet me by accident."
Travis had no comforting lie to give.
"No."
Alvarez turned another page.
Daniel Reese's name appeared.
Another address.
Another soldier.
Then another.
At least nine entries.
Some crossed out.
Some circled.
One marked PAID.
Travis stared.
"What does paid mean?"
Alvarez closed the notebook.
"That's what we're going to find out."
His radio crackled.
A team was approaching Travis's property.
The house.
His father had joined them outside Melissa's home by then and stood near the kitchen doorway listening.
When Travis glanced at him, the old man gave a single grim nod.
Paper remembers.
Apparently Kurt kept records too.
At 6:02, Alvarez received an update.
Officers had arrived at the house.
The black Ram was present.
Kurt was believed to be inside.
At 6:06, another update.
No response at the front door.
At 6:09, lights were visible in the rear.
At 6:11, Travis's phone rang again.
Kurt.
Everyone looked at the screen.
Alvarez motioned.
"Answer."
Travis did.
This time Kurt sounded different.
Breathing hard.
"You gave them the notebook."
Travis remained silent.
"Beth gave you the notebook."
"Police have it."
A chair scraped on the other end.
"You have no idea what you've done."
"You keep saying that."
"They're taking everything."
Travis heard pounding in the background.
Police announcing themselves.
Kurt's voice dropped.
"Tell them to leave."
"No."
"Travis."
"You forged my name."
"Beth did."
"You used it."
"You're going to regret this."
The pounding grew louder.
Travis looked at Alvarez.
The detective was listening intently.
Kurt suddenly said, "You care so much about the house?"
Travis did not answer.
"I'll make sure you remember it."
The line went dead.
Alvarez immediately called the entry team.
Travis felt dread before anyone said the word.
"Fire," Alvarez said.
Bethany gasped.
Travis stood.
"What?"
"Possible fire inside."
His father swore under his breath.
Alvarez raised one hand.
"Fire department is staged."
Travis moved toward the door.
Hale blocked him.
"No."
"My house is burning."
"Maybe."
"Move."
"No."
He stared at her.
She did not flinch.
"Your daughter is here."
That stopped him.
Three words.
Nothing else could have.
Travis looked toward the living room.
Kaylee sat on the carpet with Melissa, building a crooked tower from wooden blocks.
She was safe.
The house was nineteen years of plans, repairs, mortgage payments and memory.
Kaylee was breathing ten yards away.
Travis stepped back.
His father watched him with quiet approval.
"Let them work," he said.
Travis hated every second.
At 6:17, police entered the house.
Kurt was not inside.
Smoke was coming from the office.
The fire department contained it before flames spread beyond two rooms.
At 6:29, officers found an open rear window.
At 6:34, a neighbor reported seeing someone crossing the drainage ditch behind the property.
Kurt had run.
Darren's location was unknown.
The notebook was now evidence.
The house was damaged but standing.
The man at the center of everything had disappeared.
Then Alvarez's phone rang.
He listened.
His expression tightened.
"What?" Travis asked.
Alvarez lowered the phone.
"Kurt didn't leave empty-handed."
Travis waited.
"The officers found your file cabinet open."
His stomach dropped.
"What did he take?"
"We don't know yet."
Bethany whispered, "He kept a red folder."
Everyone turned.
"What red folder?" Alvarez asked.
Bethany's face had gone pale again.
"The one he never let me touch."
"Where was it?"
"In Travis's office."
"What was inside?"
She looked toward the black notebook on the table.
"I saw it once."
"What did you see?"
"Copies of driver's licenses."
Travis felt the room go cold.
"Whose?"
"I don't know all of them."
"Mine?"
Bethany shook her head.
"No."
That should have been reassuring.
It was not.
"Then whose?"
She stared at Alvarez.
"People from the notebook."
Alvarez immediately reached for his phone.
Travis looked through the window at the fading daylight.
Kurt had lost the house.
He had lost Bethany.
He had lost the forged-paper advantage.
He had lost the notebook containing the structure of his operation.
But he had escaped with identities belonging to the people he had targeted.
And somewhere beyond Melissa's quiet street, a man who had spent months learning exactly how to exploit absent soldiers now knew the police were coming for him.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: While Police Searched for Kurt, the Red Folder Led Investigators to a Soldier Who Had Never Realized He Was Already a Target
After Nineteen Hours on the Road, Travis Found Another Man Wearing His Robe and Answering His Front Door
Part 8 of 28
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