The first attempt to contact Laura Miller came through her cell phone.
It rang inside the house.
Everyone outside heard it faintly through the open second-floor window, a bright harmless ringtone in a yard still smelling of smoke and burned plastic. No one answered. It rang six times, stopped, then started again when dispatch called back.
On the third call, someone picked up.
No one spoke.
Torres lifted one hand, signaling everyone to hold radio traffic.
Dispatch said, “Laura? This is 911. Can you speak?”
At first there was only breathing.
Then a woman whispered, “He has my voice.”
Torres stiffened.
Daniel, standing beside the command vehicle with a paramedic wrapping his arm, pulled the headset closer.
Dispatch kept her voice soft. “Laura, are you safe?”
“No.”
“Are you upstairs?”
A pause.
“No.”
Daniel looked at the second-floor window.
The warning had come from upstairs.
But Laura said she was not upstairs.
That meant the warning was either recorded or transmitted through something in the room above.
“Laura,” dispatch said, “where are you?”
A soft thud came through the line. Fabric against phone. Maybe Laura shifting. Maybe someone nearby. Then she whispered, “Laundry room. Behind the dryer. Wall panel.”
Torres looked toward Daniel.
Daniel grabbed the house layout from the patrol tablet. “Laundry room is first floor, west side.”
Dispatch asked, “Is Grant with you?”
“He’s looking for the drive.”
“What drive?”
“My proof.”
Then another sound came through. Footsteps. A door opening somewhere near her.
Laura’s breathing changed instantly.
“Laura?” dispatch asked.
The line went dead.
No one at the command post spoke.
Daniel looked at the house. The laundry room window was small, frosted, and too high to see through. The back door remained closed. The front curtains were drawn. Grant knew the police were outside. He knew they knew the woman in the trash bin was a decoy. He knew Laura had made contact.
That meant he would move faster now.
Torres ordered a perimeter around all exits. Fire crews remained back. A tactical team was six minutes out. Daniel wanted to go in immediately, and Torres saw it on his face before he spoke.
“No.”
“She’s in the laundry room.”
“She’s alive because we’re not rushing into his second trap.”
Daniel hated that she was right.
The explosion had not been meant only to kill him. It had been meant to teach responders that the obvious path was dangerous. Grant wanted them emotional. Angry. Running blind. He had already staged one scene. There could be more inside.
Then a baby monitor crackled from the porch.
Every officer turned.
The small white device sat on a rocking chair near the front door, facing outward as if someone had placed it there deliberately. Its green light blinked.
A woman’s voice came through it.
Laura’s voice.
“He’s not trying to kill me yet,” it whispered. “He still needs me to say the phrase.”
Torres slowly raised her radio.
“What phrase?”
The monitor crackled.
Then a man’s voice, Grant’s voice, came through the same device.
“Laura, sweetheart. Time to finish what you started.”