Chapter 10 - UNCLE VIC
Z
My clearest memory of Victor Shaw was not frightening.
That bothered me.
He made balloon animals.
That was what came back first.
I was nine or ten, standing at my own birthday party while Victor twisted long balloons into dogs and swords for the neighborhood kids.
He wore a denim jacket.
He smelled like cigarettes and peppermint.
When my balloon sword popped, he made me another one before I could ask.
That was the man my father had believed might be helping Evelyn stalk women.
Evil would be easier to understand if evil always looked evil.
It doesn’t.
Sometimes it brings birthday balloons.
Police found Victor’s last known address in Arizona.
Empty.
Neighbors said he had moved six months earlier.
No forwarding information.
His driver’s license had expired.
Bank activity was minimal.
Cash withdrawals every few months.
“He knew how to disappear,” Ruiz said.
Of course he did.
He had spent a career finding people who didn’t want to be found.
The files from Dad’s workshop told us what kind of work Victor did for Evelyn.
Photographs.
License plate searches.
Address histories.
Phone logs.
Employment records.
Most of the material was legal in the era it was collected.
Some was not.
Dad had documented several cash payments from Evelyn to Victor.
But there was no receipt marked KIDNAPPING.
No ledger entry marked HELPED HIDE A BODY.
Criminals rarely provide convenient accounting.
The strongest evidence came from an old cassette.
Thomas had secretly recorded a conversation.
Ruiz digitized it.
We listened in a police conference room.
My father’s voice came first.
“Tell me what you did.”
Victor answered.
“I watched her.”
“Patricia?”
“Yes.”
“For Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Months.”
“You knew Evelyn wanted her gone.”
“I knew she wanted information.”
My father’s voice hardened.
“Don’t lie to me.”
Silence.
Then Victor said, “I never killed anybody.”
That wasn’t the same as innocence.
My father asked, “Did you help build the room under the cabin?”
Another long silence.
“Yes.”
Aaron covered his face.
Victor continued.
“Evelyn said it was a storm shelter.”
“You’re a locksmith. Storm shelters need chains?”
Victor didn’t answer.
Then the tape clicked off.
The recording alone might support charges connected to unlawful imprisonment, depending on statutes and corroboration.
But Patricia’s murder was decades old.
Natalie’s kidnapping involved physical evidence Victor might have touched.
Ruiz wanted him found.
So did I.
Not because I wanted revenge.
I wanted to know how many times Victor had stood near me while knowing what my mother was capable of.
The answer arrived three days later.
My phone rang at 2:13 a.m.
Unknown number.
I nearly ignored it.
Then something made me answer.
“Hello?”
An old man’s voice said, “Your father should’ve burned that workshop.”
I sat upright.
Maya woke instantly.
“Who is this?”
“You know.”
Victor.
I put the call on speaker and texted Ruiz from Maya’s phone.
“You sent the birthday card.”
“No.”
“Then how did you know about the workshop?”
“Evelyn told me years ago.”
“Why call now?”
He laughed softly.
“Because once detectives start digging, they make everything ugly.”
“You helped her imprison women.”
“I built a room.”
“With chains.”
“I didn’t install the chains.”
“You followed Patricia.”
Silence.
“You followed Natalie.”
Another silence.
Then: “Thomas wasn’t innocent either.”
My entire body tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“Ask yourself why your father kept me around after he knew what Evelyn was.”
I looked at Maya.
She remained completely still.
Victor continued.
“Your father liked knowing where people were.”
“That’s not what the files show.”
“You think dead men keep honest diaries?”
Before I could respond, Maya leaned toward the phone.
“Did you help Evelyn lock me in the shed?”
Victor went silent.
Maya’s voice hardened.
“Did you install the camera?”
A breath.
Then Victor said, “No.”
I believed that no more than I believed anything else.
But Maya asked a better question.
“Do you know who did?”
Victor didn’t answer.
“Victor?”
His voice dropped.
“You people think Evelyn lost because she went to prison.”
“What does that mean?”
“She planned for prison.”
My stomach tightened.
“Explain.”
“You think that birthday card was her only message?”
The line went dead.
Police traced the call to a disposable phone.
Activated that day.
Signal bounced off a tower near Kansas City.
By the time officers searched the area, Victor was gone.
But his warning became real quickly.
Over the next two weeks, five envelopes appeared.
One went to Aaron.
One to Chloe.
One to Lauren.
One to Natalie.
One to Patricia Cole’s surviving sister.
Each contained a photograph.
Not current.
Old photographs.
Aaron received a picture of himself asleep at fourteen.
Lauren received a picture taken outside her college dorm years before meeting Aaron.
Natalie received one from the week before her kidnapping.
Patricia’s sister received something worse.
A photograph of Patricia standing outside the Lake Ashford cabin on the day she died.
On the back, someone had written:
SHE CHOSE WRONG.
The handwriting matched Evelyn’s old journals.
She had prepared the envelopes before prison.
Maybe years before.
Ruiz called it psychological warfare.
Maya called it exactly what it was.
“She wants to keep hurting people without being in the room.”
The prison searched Evelyn’s cell.
Nothing.
She denied knowledge.
Then smiled when investigators showed her the photographs.
According to Ruiz, she said, “People should be more careful with their memories.”
I wanted to drive to the prison.
I didn’t.
That was what she wanted.
Instead, we focused on Victor.
Ruiz discovered he had rented post office boxes under fake identities in six states.
One box contained storage receipts.
A facility outside St. Louis.
Police obtained a warrant.
Unit 304 looked ordinary from outside.
Inside were thirty years of equipment.
Cameras.
Recorders.
Lock picks.
Old computers.
Stacks of photographs.
More files.
One wall was covered with maps.
Our houses.
My office.
Aaron’s apartment.
The hospital where Grace had been born.
My daughter’s preschool.
When Ruiz called to tell me, my hands went numb.
“Her preschool?”
“Yes.”
“Current?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
That changed everything.
Old surveillance was history.
Grace’s preschool meant someone had been watching us recently.
Victor wasn’t just hiding from consequences.
He was still working.
Police removed Grace from school under escort.
Maya and I changed temporary residences again.
Aaron moved.
Chloe was warned.
Natalie was placed back under protection.
For forty-eight hours, Victor disappeared completely.
Then a security camera caught him entering a motel near St. Louis.
SWAT surrounded the property.
They entered his room.
Empty.
The bed was still warm.
Coffee on the table.
Bathroom window open.
Classic Victor.
But this time he had left something behind.
A photograph.
New.
Taken three days earlier.
Maya and Grace walking from our car into the grocery store.
On the back were six words.
EVELYN WAS RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING.
Beneath that:
FAMILY ALWAYS COMES BACK FOR FAMILY.
Maya read it without blinking.
Then she handed it to Ruiz.
“Stop treating him like an old accomplice.”
Ruiz nodded.
“What do you think he is?”
Maya looked toward Grace sleeping in my arms.
“A current threat.”
That night, the FBI joined the search.
May you like
And for the first time since my mother’s arrest, I understood that the final chapter of her violence might not belong to Evelyn at all.
It might belong to the man who had spent thirty years standing just outside every photograph.
