PART 3
Officer Ortiz didn’t wait for backup.
The moment dispatch confirmed the license plate belonged to a stolen silver minivan reported three weeks earlier, she grabbed her radio.
“Seal every road leading to Quarry Spur. Nobody goes in alone.”
Graves was already pulling on his gloves.
“I’m going.”
“You’ll wait for SWAT,” Ortiz snapped.
He looked at the old flyer in his hand.
“I waited sixteen years already.”
Without another word, he climbed onto his Harley.
The engine roared to life.
For a second, I wanted to stop him.
Then I looked at Ellie.
She was clutching Maple’s leash so tightly her knuckles had turned white.
“I have to go too,” I whispered.
Ortiz shook her head.
“No.”
“That’s my dog.”
“And that’s exactly why you stay here.”
…
Twenty minutes later, blue lights surrounded the abandoned industrial district.
Quarry Spur Road hadn’t been used in years.
Broken warehouses lined both sides of the cracked pavement.
Every window had been boarded shut.
Every building looked empty.
Too empty.
Graves removed his helmet and pointed toward Warehouse Four.
“That’s where he’ll be.”
Ortiz frowned.
“How can you possibly know?”
He stared at the rusted loading dock.
“Because that’s where my sister disappeared.”
Silence.
Even the officers stopped moving.
Graves slowly unfolded the faded flyer.
The smiling twelve-year-old girl wasn’t a stranger.
“Her name was Hannah.”
His voice barely carried over the wind.
“My little sister.”
“She found a lost puppy poster.”
“She wanted to surprise everyone by rescuing it herself.”
“She never came home.”
No one spoke.
For sixteen years, Graves had returned to Quarry Spur every month.
Searching.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Everyone believed Hannah had run away.
Graves never believed it.
Now, for the first time…
He had proof.
The same trick.
The same fake address.
The same promise of a helpless dog.
Only the child had changed.
Suddenly—
A bark.
Faint.
Almost impossible to hear.
Ellie’s head snapped up.
“Mom…”
“That’s Maple.”
Another bark echoed from somewhere beneath the warehouse floor.
Graves dropped to one knee beside an old concrete drain.
He listened for three seconds.
Then his face changed.
“There’s a basement.”
An officer pulled away a rusted steel grate.
Cold air rushed upward.
Along with it…
A frightened whimper.
Not just from a dog.
From someone else.
Officer Ortiz’s expression froze.
“Did everyone hear that?”
Nobody answered.
Because they all had.
There was another victim still alive beneath Warehouse Four.
To be continued…