PART 10: THE MAN HAROLD FEARED
Nobody in the kitchen spoke.
The name lingered in the air.
Richard.
It meant nothing to me.
But to Dale…
It looked as though someone had reached inside his chest and squeezed the breath out of him.
Linda laid the photograph flat on the table.
“Who is he?”
Dale didn’t answer.
Janice did.
“Richard Vaughn.”
She tapped the man standing beside my late husband.
“He never signed the paperwork.”
“He never met the widows.”
“He never appeared on television.”
“He never testified.”
“So who was he?” Paula asked.
Janice looked directly at her.
“He was the man who chose the victims.”
A chill ran through me.
“What do you mean?”
“He collected names.”
“Recently widowed.”
“No children nearby.”
“People who trusted easily.”
“He built lists.”
Colleen slowly sat down.
“Oh, dear God…”
“I remember hearing that name.”
Linda frowned.
“From where?”
“Your father.”
She looked at me.
“About a year before Harold died.”
My heart skipped.
“He never told me.”
“No.”
“He told me.”
The room fell silent.
Colleen looked ashamed.
“He made me promise not to frighten you.”
“What did he say?”
“He said if anything ever happened to him…”
“…I was to make sure nobody convinced you to sell the Ridgeway house.”
I stared at her.
“You never told me.”
“I thought he’d been worrying too much.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek.
“I’ve regretted that for twenty-eight years.”
Janice quietly slid another document across the table.
“This is why.”
It wasn’t a legal paper.
It wasn’t a deed.
It was a handwritten notebook page.
Across the top, in bold black ink, were the words:
RIDGEWAY PROPERTIES
Below it…
a numbered list.
House after house.
Family after family.
Every address had a date beside it.
Some names were crossed out.
Some had circles.
Then I found mine.
18. Harold & Marguerite Ellis
Beside it, someone had written:
Delay. Husband suspicious.
My hands began to tremble.
Harold hadn’t imagined any of it.
Someone had really been watching us.
For years.
Paula looked horrified.
“Mom…”
“Dad knew?”
“I think he did.”
Linda studied the page carefully.
“This handwriting isn’t Janice’s.”
“No,” Janice replied.
“It belongs to Richard.”
Dale finally spoke.
Barely above a whisper.
“He always kept lists.”
Everyone turned toward him.
“You’ve seen this notebook before?”
He nodded slowly.
“Once.”
“Where?”
“In Harold’s office.”
Janice’s eyes narrowed.
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t know it mattered.”
“It mattered.”
Linda looked from Dale to Janice.
“If Richard made these lists…”
“…where is he now?”
Nobody answered.
Not even Janice.
Then the kitchen phone rang.
It startled every one of us.
I almost let it go to voicemail.
Almost.
Something told me to answer.
I picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
There was no greeting.
Only a man’s calm voice.
“Mrs. Ellis?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad you’re still alive.”
Every hair on my arms stood up.
“Who is this?”
A soft chuckle came through the line.
“I’ve been waiting a very long time for this family to start asking the right questions.”
My grip tightened on the phone.
“What do you want?”
The man ignored the question.
Instead, he said something that made my blood run cold.
“Tell Janice…”
“…she kept her promise.”
The line went dead.
I lowered the receiver slowly.
Janice’s face had gone completely white.
Linda stood up so quickly her chair fell backward.
“What did he say?”
I looked around the room.
Then I repeated every word.
No one spoke.
Finally…
Janice closed her eyes and whispered,
“Richard knows where I am.”
And for the first time since she walked through my front door…
she looked truly afraid.
