Chapter 16 - The Photograph
The search for Douglas became the largest operation yet.
Police tracked cameras.
Phones.
License plates.
Gas stations.
Nothing.
Gerald and Teresa had prepared carefully.
Then Amy remembered something.
“My phone.”
She said.
“What about it?”
“If they still have it, Find My might not work.”
“But the photo backup might.”
Amy had configured her camera to upload whenever connected to Wi-Fi.
We logged into a secure recovery account.
There were three new images.
The first was black.
The second showed part of a wooden floor.
The third changed everything.
My father was sitting in a chair.
His hands appeared tied in front of him.
Behind him was a green wall.
A faded sign was partially visible through a window.
NASHVILLE FARM SUP—
Detective Hill identified an abandoned agricultural supply warehouse less than forty minutes away.
Police surrounded the building.
I was ordered to stay back.
Those forty-seven minutes felt longer than the previous thirty-four years of my life.
Finally, Hill called.
“We found your father.”
I nearly collapsed.
“Alive?”
“Alive.”
Douglas was dehydrated and shaken, but physically stable.
Teresa was not there.
Neither was Gerald.
But Douglas told police what happened.
Teresa had called him pretending she wanted to surrender.
He agreed to meet.
Gerald grabbed him from behind.
They forced him into the truck.
Then Teresa begged Douglas to sign documents surrendering his trustee authority.
He refused.
“She kept saying Connor stole her life.”
Douglas later told me from his hospital bed.
“She said everything should have belonged to her.”
I sat beside him.
“Why did you ever trust her again?”
Douglas stared at his hands.
“Because guilt makes people stupid.”
He explained that after their divorce, Teresa blamed him for leaving her financially insecure.
For years, he believed he owed her something.
She used that guilt.
Just as she used mine.
Before I left, Douglas grabbed my wrist.
“Connor.”
“What?”
“Teresa kept talking about your birthday.”
“I know.”
“No.”
He said.
“You don’t understand.”
“She said if she couldn’t control the trust before midnight, she would make sure nobody got it.”
I told Hill.
Rachel immediately contacted the trust administrator.
That was when we discovered the final danger.
The trust owned one physical asset nobody had mentioned.
A historic warehouse property in downtown Nashville.
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Inside that property were original bearer certificates and archived documents worth far more than their paper value.
And Teresa still had one old access key.
