The Substitute

Chapter 8 — The Reporter

Nora called Rachel Voss at 7 a.m.

“My apartment was searched last night. Laptop stolen. They left a note.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No. I’m angry.” Nora was standing in the wreckage, coffee in hand, running on fumes. “Rachel, I need everything you have on the Ashfords. Everything you didn’t print.”

“Come to Portland. Today. I have boxes.”

Nora called in sick — her first sick day, and Mrs. Pruitt’s silence on the phone was louder than words — and drove to Portland.

Rachel’s apartment was a warren of file boxes and newspaper clippings, the home of a woman who’d never thrown away a lead. She pulled out a box labeled ASHFORD and set it on the table like an offering.

“Start here,” she said.

For three hours, Nora read. Police reports, insurance documents, interviews Rachel had conducted and never published. A picture emerged — not of a grieving family, but of a marriage cracking apart.

Thomas Ashford’s development company had been hemorrhaging money for two years before the fire. Three projects stalled. Investors suing. The Laurel Hill house — insured for twice its assessed value, the policy doubled six months before the fire.

“Classic arson-for-profit indicators,” Rachel said. “But the DA wouldn’t touch it. Thomas Ashford’s lawyer was very good, and the Ashfords were very generous to the right campaigns.”

“What about Eleanor?” Nora asked.

Rachel pulled out a thin folder. “This is what I never printed. Eleanor Ashford called me twice before she died. The second time, she said she’d found something — documents, in Thomas’s study. Proof he’d set the fire. She was going to the police.”

“And then?”

“And then she had a stroke. Three days later. At forty-four.” Rachel’s voice was flat. “The medical examiner was Margaret Hale’s husband.”

Nora looked up sharply. “Her husband was the M.E.?”

“For twelve years. Retired now. Lives with Margaret in the big house on Chestnut Street — the house Eleanor grew up in. The house Margaret inherited.” Rachel tapped the folder. “Eleanor’s ‘stroke.’ No autopsy — the husband signed off. Buried within a week. And Thomas — by then long gone — didn’t even come back for the funeral.”

“Jesus.”

“It gets worse.” Rachel pulled out a photocopy — a page from a child’s diary, the handwriting big and careful. “This was in Eleanor’s things. Margaret gave it to me years ago, probably by accident, mixed in with family photos she wanted me to have for a retrospective. Read it.”

Nora read:

*October 13, 2006. Tomorrow is the big day. Daddy says we’re going on a trip, just me and him. Mommy is sad but she says it’s okay. Milo doesn’t know. I packed my blue dress. I love Milo but he cries too much. Daddy says don’t tell Mommy about the trip. It’s a secret. — Lena*

Nora’s hands were shaking. She was so tired of her hands shaking.

“The day before the fire,” Rachel said quietly. “Thomas was planning to take Lena somewhere. A secret trip. Mommy doesn’t know. And that night, the house burns down with two points of origin, and Lena is never found.”

“He took her,” Nora whispered. “He set the fire to cover it. He took Lena.”

“That’s what I think. But proving it —” Rachel spread her hands. “There’s no body, no witness, no physical evidence. Just a dead woman’s phone calls and a child’s diary.”

“What about Milo? He was there. He was six.”

“Milo Ashford died in foster care in 2011. Pneumonia.” Rachel said it the way people say things they’ve said too many times. “At least, that’s the record.”

“You don’t believe it.”

“I believe records can be changed. I believe a six-year-old who saw his father set a fire would be very inconvenient. And I believe —” Rachel hesitated. “I believe Milo Renner, born 2017 in Bangor, is a fiction. A very convenient fiction.”

“Then who is he?” Nora asked. “If Milo Ashford died in 2011 —”

“Then the boy drawing burning houses is someone else. Or the death record is the fiction.” Rachel leaned forward. “Nora. There’s a DNA angle. If you’re Lena — if you’re really her — a test would prove it. Margaret Hale’s DNA against yours. Aunt against niece. It would blow this whole thing open.”

“She’d never agree to it.”

“She wouldn’t have to. Not if we had probable cause. Not if the police reopened the case.” Rachel’s eyes gleamed. “And for that, we need Milo to talk. A witness — a surviving witness — changes everything.”

“He spoke yesterday. One word. My name.”

Rachel went still. “He’s talking?”

“Barely. But it’s a start.”

“Then we don’t have much time.” Rachel started repacking the box. “Whoever searched your apartment — they’re scared. Scared people do stupid things. You need to get Milo somewhere safe, and you need to do it now.”

Nora thought of the Renners — good people, minivan, church every Sunday. She thought of Milo’s small hand in hers, his rusty voice saying *Lena.*

“I have an idea,” she said slowly. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“Try me.”

“Margaret Hale called the police on me. She’s watching. What if I give her exactly what she wants?” Nora met Rachel’s eyes. “What if I leave Greyport?”