Chapter 9 - The Last False Defense
My parents were arrested first.
Melissa and Troy turned themselves in the following afternoon after their attorney negotiated surrender conditions.
All four were charged with conspiracy, attempted murder, child abuse, reckless endangerment, false reporting, and evidence tampering. Additional fraud-related charges were held pending the financial investigation.
The local paper put the story on the front page.
My mother cried in her booking photo. My father looked furious that public humiliation had reached him at all. Melissa looked almost offended. Troy looked like a man who had always assumed money and bluster would buy one more escape route.
Then, because some people never stop making themselves worse, they tried one final defense.
They claimed the cabins were towed early because a mechanical issue had arisen with the rental skids. They claimed the vehicles left because my father had chest pain and needed urgent care. They claimed the note had been meant to send me toward the ranger station. They claimed they believed I had my beacon.
They also claimed Noah had not been expected to go.
That last part interested Collins more than anything else.
If true, it meant the plan had changed in real time and they had proceeded anyway.
If false, it meant they were still lying to protect the ugliest truth.
Noah settled the question during a therapy session two days later.
Dr. Voss asked him what Aunt Melissa said when he asked to hike.
He answered without hesitation.
“That’s even better.”
Better.
When Collins called me with that update, I sat down hard in the kitchen chair.
Because until then, some buried piece of me had still been clinging to the idea that Noah was collateral damage. Accidental. Not fully chosen.
That small mercy vanished in three words.
That’s even better.
Melissa had known he was going.
She had wanted him going.
The next morning, prosecutors requested a broader search of Melissa’s cloud backups and deleted-message archives.
If there was a written plan anywhere, Collins believed that was where it would be.
I didn’t sleep that night.
Not because I feared what they would find.
Because I knew they were going to find it.
People capable of that level of control rarely trust memory alone.
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They make lists.
And somewhere out there, I was certain my sister had made one too.
