PART 10 – Blood in Derek’s Abandoned Car Made Him Look Like a Victim, Until the Evidence Showed Someone Had Carefully Designed That Story Too

The first photograph Sarah saw showed blood across the driver's seat.

Not a few drops.

Enough to make the image immediately alarming.

Mia did not want Sarah looking at crime-scene photographs, but Sarah insisted after police confirmed Derek was still missing.

There was blood on the steering wheel.

A smear along the center console.

More near the door.

Derek's phone was gone.

His laptop was gone.

His passport, the one found in the cash box, remained in police possession.

Another passport might exist.

Nobody knew.

"Is it his blood?" Sarah asked.

"Testing isn't complete," Mia said.

"What do police think?"

"They aren't speculating."

"You're speculating."

Mia gave her a tired look.

"Yes."

"And?"

"The scene looks convenient."

Sarah understood immediately.

"Derek's good at convenient."

The car had been left in long-term airport parking where cameras existed but coverage had blind areas.

A man wearing Derek's jacket was visible entering the garage.

His face never appeared clearly.

No footage showed him leaving.

The implication was obvious.

Something terrible had happened.

Margaret embraced it immediately.

Within hours she posted publicly that her son had disappeared after being subjected to relentless harassment.

She never named Sarah directly.

She did not need to.

Comments did it for her.

Police warned Sarah to remain at the hotel.

Emily removed another social application from Sarah's phone.

"I don't want to know what they're saying."

"Good."

"I do want to know."

"No."

Sarah almost smiled.

Emily placed the phone on the dresser.

"You are carrying twins and living under an assumed hotel reservation because your husband hired someone to watch you. You don't need strangers volunteering opinions."

Sarah sat beside the window.

"Do you think he's hurt?"

Emily hesitated.

"I think Derek wants us asking that question."

Sarah looked at her sister.

"So do I."

The blood results returned the next afternoon.

It was Derek's.

Sarah's certainty wavered.

Mia noticed.

"Blood proves injury."

"That's not nothing."

"No."

"Could Victor have attacked him?"

"Possible."

"Jessica?"

"Possible."

"Someone at work?"

"Possible."

Sarah hated the word.

Everything had become possible.

Police found a small cut of bloodied fabric beneath the driver's seat.

The pattern suggested bleeding from an arm or hand rather than catastrophic injury.

There was no evidence of a struggle elsewhere in the vehicle.

Then investigators found a receipt.

A medical-supply store.

Purchased two days before Derek vanished.

Among the items: sterile lancets and collection tubes.

Sarah stared at the list.

"He bought equipment to collect his own blood."

"Possibly."

"Stop saying possibly."

Mia raised an eyebrow.

Sarah sighed.

"Sorry."

"No, you're not."

"No."

The store's security footage clarified matters.

Derek entered alone.

He bought the supplies himself.

He wore the same jacket visible in the airport footage.

The apparent crime scene began looking less like an attack.

Sarah felt no relief.

A staged disappearance meant Derek had a destination.

A plan.

And enough freedom to carry it out.

Police obtained financial records.

Cash withdrawals preceded the disappearance.

One was made near the storage facility.

Another near Jessica's apartment.

Jessica denied giving him money.

Mia asked Sarah whether Derek owned property she did not know about.

"Apparently I don't know what he owns."

They searched.

No obvious second home appeared.

Then Emily asked a better question.

"Where did he go when he wanted nobody around?"

Sarah thought.

Derek disliked solitude.

He liked hotels, clubs, offices.

Places where people served him.

But there was one exception.

"His father's cabin."

Margaret's late husband had owned a small hunting cabin near the Virginia border.

After his death, Margaret said it had been sold.

Sarah had never checked.

Police did.

It had not been sold.

Ownership had transferred into a limited-liability company.

The company traced back to Victor Shaw.

Law enforcement moved carefully.

Sarah learned nothing for hours.

Then Mia called after midnight.

"They found someone."

Sarah sat upright.

"Derek?"

"No."

"Victor?"

"No."

"Who?"

"Jessica."

Sarah stared at the dark hotel room.

"At the cabin?"

"Near it."

"Is she okay?"

"She's alive."

That answer carried too much weight.

"What happened?"

"She was found walking along a county road without shoes."

Emily woke.

Sarah put the phone on speaker.

Mia continued.

"She has bruising. She says Derek assaulted her."

Sarah closed her eyes.

Whatever Jessica had done, Sarah felt no satisfaction hearing that.

"Where is Derek?"

"Gone."

Jessica was taken to a hospital.

She initially refused to speak with police.

Then she asked for Sarah.

Mia said no.

Jessica insisted.

Sarah wanted to go.

Mia objected.

Emily objected louder.

Sarah went anyway, accompanied by an officer.

Jessica looked smaller in the hospital bed.

A bruise darkened one cheek. Her lower lip was split. Both wrists showed red marks.

Sarah stopped inside the doorway.

Jessica looked at her and began crying.

"I'm sorry."

Sarah remained standing.

"Tell the police what happened."

"I did."

"Then why did you ask for me?"

"Because he was going to kill you."

The room went still.

Sarah felt the officer shift behind her.

"What?"

Jessica wiped her face.

"Derek knew the medication evidence was found."

"We know."

"He knew Aaron talked."

"Yes."

"He knew Victor kept copies."

Sarah waited.

Jessica's breathing quickened.

"He blamed me."

"For what?"

"For everything falling apart."

Sarah thought of the bruises.

"What happened at the cabin?"

"He called me after we spoke with you."

"When?"

"The night he disappeared."

"He asked you to meet him?"

Jessica nodded.

"He said he wanted to leave."

"Together?"

"Yes."

"And you went."

Jessica looked ashamed.

"I thought we could fix things."

Sarah could not help it.

"You still thought that?"

"I was scared."

"That isn't an answer."

"No."

Jessica looked at her.

"I loved him."

Sarah felt something close to pity and hated it.

Jessica continued.

"He told me Victor had betrayed him. He said we needed to collect some things from the cabin and go."

"What things?"

"Cash. Documents."

"Where was Victor?"

"I don't know."

"What happened?"

Jessica's eyes moved toward the officer.

"When I got there, Derek was already angry. He kept asking what I'd told Mia."

"I wasn't there when you spoke to Mia," the officer said. "Continue."

Jessica nodded.

"I admitted I gave her the storage address."

Sarah watched her carefully.

"He hit you for that?"

"Not immediately."

"What happened first?"

"He asked whether Sarah knew about the medication."

Sarah felt cold.

"I told him yes."

"And?"

"He started laughing."

That was not the reaction Sarah expected.

"Why?"

Jessica swallowed.

"He said it didn't matter because nobody could prove why he'd done it."

Sarah's stomach tightened.

"Why did he do it?"

Jessica looked at her.

"He said the medication wasn't originally about stopping pregnancy."

Sarah remembered Dr. Evans's warning.

"Then what?"

"He wanted you sick."

Sarah stared.

Jessica continued.

"Not seriously sick. Just tired. Unfocused. Dependent."

Emily's earlier words returned.

You were always taking care of him while he made sure you knew as little as possible.

Only the direction had been reversed.

Derek had been manufacturing the need for care.

"He wanted me dependent on him."

Jessica nodded.

"The fertility effects were useful."

Useful.

Again that word.

"What about the early pregnancy?"

"Derek said that changed things."

"How?"

"He panicked."

"Why?"

"Because if you had a baby, you'd become harder to control."

Sarah pressed her hand against her abdomen.

"And now?"

Jessica's eyes filled.

"Now you're having two."

The room seemed suddenly colder.

"What was he planning?"

Jessica shook her head.

"I don't know exactly."

"You're lying."

"I'm not."

"You said he was going to kill me."

Jessica looked toward the officer.

"He had a bag."

"What bag?"

"Medical supplies. Gloves. Sedatives."

Sarah felt nausea rise.

"He said he needed to make you disappear before the criminal investigation reached him."

The officer interrupted.

"Did he use those words?"

Jessica nodded.

"Almost."

"What exactly did he say?"

Jessica looked at Sarah.

"He said, 'If Sarah isn't there to testify, most of this becomes noise.'"

Sarah stopped breathing.

The officer began asking more questions.

Where was the bag?

What type of supplies?

Did Derek mention the hotel?

Jessica answered.

Then one question changed her expression.

"Did Derek know where Sarah was staying?"

Jessica looked at Sarah.

"I don't know."

"Think."

"He said Victor could find anyone."

Sarah's skin prickled.

Victor had been detained, questioned, represented by counsel and released pending further investigation because authorities did not yet have grounds to hold him indefinitely.

His location was now unknown.

Sarah looked at Mia.

"We need to move."

Mia was already standing.

The hotel changed before dawn.

Only law enforcement received the new location.

Sarah was placed in a secured residential facility normally used for protected witnesses and domestic-violence emergencies.

Emily remained with her.

Two days passed.

Then Victor Shaw walked into a police station with an attorney.

He carried a hard drive.

Mia called Sarah immediately.