Nia didn’t drive straight home.
Instead, she spent nearly an hour weaving through the streets of Ashwood, making random turns and doubling back twice. The black SUV remained behind her for several miles before finally disappearing into afternoon traffic.
Only then did she allow herself to breathe.
She headed for the one place she knew no one in the Carter family would think to look.
The newsroom.
The Ashwood Gazette occupied the second floor of a renovated warehouse overlooking the railroad tracks. Though Nia worked for a national investigative publication, the Gazette’s editor, Harold Bennett, had been her first mentor.
If anyone understood the importance of protecting evidence, it was Harold.
He looked up from his cluttered desk as she walked in.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m beginning to think my family has.”
Harold raised an eyebrow.
“That serious?”
Nia placed three items on his desk.
The anonymous warning.
The church prayer list.
Tanya’s handwritten letter.
Harold read each one without speaking.
When he finished, he leaned back in his chair.
“This isn’t family gossip anymore.”
“I know.”
“Somebody’s trying to stop you.”
“I know.”
“And somebody else has been trying to leave you breadcrumbs.”
Nia nodded.
“I think Tanya expected something to happen.”
Harold led her into the paper’s archives.
Shelves lined with decades of reporting surrounded them.
In one corner sat a restored cassette player and document scanner used for preserving historical material.
Nia carefully removed the cassette tape she had found beneath Tanya’s bed.
The handwritten label still read:
August 14, 1998
Harold examined it.
“The tape’s old.”
“Can it be recovered?”
“Maybe.”
He inserted the cassette.
The machine whirred.
For several long seconds…
Nothing.
Then…
Static.
A click.
A woman’s voice.
Young.
Shaky.
“T…testing…”
Nia’s heart stopped.
It was Tanya.
“My name is Tanya Carter.”
Another burst of static.
“If anyone is listening to this…”
Silence.
“I need you to know…”
The recording skipped.
“…they’re lying.”
Nia instinctively moved closer to the speaker.
“I thought telling the truth would protect me.”
Another crackle interrupted the recording.
“I was wrong.”
The tape distorted again before Tanya continued.
“If something happens…”
“…don’t believe…”
“…don’t let them…”
Static swallowed the sentence.
The machine clicked.
End of recording.
Neither Nia nor Harold spoke.
Finally he looked up.
“That’s not the voice of someone planning to run away.”
“No.”
“That’s the voice of someone expecting danger.”
Nia stared at the cassette.
Who had interrupted the recording?
Had Tanya stopped speaking?
Or had someone stopped her?
Back at Harold’s office, Nia spread everything she’d collected across a conference table.
The photograph.
The letter.
The prayer list.
The cassette.
Each piece pointed toward the same conclusion.
Tanya hadn’t disappeared voluntarily.
She had been afraid.
Very afraid.
But afraid of whom?
Harold suddenly noticed something.
“The letter.”
“What about it?”
“The handwriting changes.”
Nia looked again.
He was right.
The opening lines were firm.
The final sentence—
Trust no one.
—looked rushed.
Almost as if Tanya had been interrupted while writing.
Harold held the page beneath a desk lamp.
“There’s an indentation.”
“What?”
He tilted the paper.
Faint impressions appeared beneath the ink.
Writing from another sheet.
Nia grabbed a soft pencil and gently shaded across a blank sheet placed over the indentation.
Slowly…
Words emerged.
Not complete sentences.
Just fragments.
…meeting…
…Deacon…
…August 15…
…proof…
Then one final line.
Journal hidden…
Nia frowned.
“The letter mentioned a journal.”
“So where is it?”
“I thought I already found it.”
Harold shook his head.
“No.”
He tapped the page.
“This says journal hidden.”
“There are two.”
That realization changed everything.
The notebook she’d recovered earlier wasn’t the journal Tanya had risked her life to protect.
Somewhere…
Another journal still existed.
One containing whatever truth Tanya had uncovered before she vanished.
As evening settled over Ashwood, Nia returned to her mother’s house.
Denise was sitting alone on the front porch.
“You’ve been gone all day.”
“I had work.”
“You mean Tanya.”
Nia didn’t answer.
Her mother looked exhausted.
“Nia…”
“What?”
“I wish you’d stop.”
“I can’t.”
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“No.”
“I don’t.”
Denise lowered her eyes.
“Some questions don’t heal families.”
Nia stepped onto the porch.
“Neither do lies.”
For a long moment, neither woman spoke.
Then Denise quietly whispered something almost too soft to hear.
“I tried to protect you.”
“From what?”
Her mother looked up.
Not with anger.
Not with frustration.
With fear.
Before she could answer, headlights swept across the front yard.
A black SUV slowed in front of the house.
It didn’t stop.
It simply rolled past.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Watching.
Then disappeared into the night.
Unable to sleep, Nia returned to the photograph of Tanya.
This time, she examined the background instead of the faces.
There, partially hidden behind the oak tree, stood another figure.
Only half visible.
A man in a dark suit.
The image was blurred.
His face couldn’t be seen.
But one detail remained unmistakably clear.
Pinned to the lapel of his jacket was a silver church deacon’s badge.
Nia felt her pulse quicken.
The tape.
The letter.
The prayer list.
Now the photograph.
Every clue pointed toward the same person.
The Deacon.
She reached for her notebook and wrote two words across a clean page.
Find Journal.
Then beneath it:
Find the Deacon.
Outside, thunder rolled across the Texas sky as rain began tapping against the window.
Somewhere in Ashwood, someone knew exactly where Tanya’s journal was.
And someone else would do anything to make sure Nia never found it.
End of Chapter Seven