Police reached the lake house before sunrise.<\/p>\n
Dererick was gone.<\/p>\n
Again.<\/p>\n
But this time his escape had not been clean.<\/p>\n
Blood marked the kitchen floor.<\/p>\n
A chair lay overturned.<\/p>\n
Broken glass glittered beside the fireplace.<\/p>\n
One interior door had been forced open.<\/p>\n
The scene looked less like another abandoned hideout and more like the aftermath of a confrontation.<\/p>\n
Kenneth Vale was not there either.<\/p>\n
His primary residence had been under surveillance.<\/p>\n
Investigators discovered he had slipped away hours earlier using a service vehicle registered to his estate staff.<\/p>\n
Harper swore quietly when she received the report.<\/p>\n
Both men were now missing.<\/p>\n
Anna understood what that meant.<\/p>\n
The teacher and the student were no longer operating on parallel tracks.<\/p>\n
They had met.<\/p>\n
And something had gone wrong.<\/p>\n
The blood in the lake house belonged mostly to Dererick. A second trace was found on the broken glass.<\/p>\n
Testing identified Kenneth Vale.<\/p>\n
Neither quantity suggested a fatal injury.<\/p>\n
The metal originals case was absent.<\/p>\n
Investigators reconstructed the likely sequence from the room.<\/p>\n
Dererick entered voluntarily.<\/p>\n
No forced exterior access.<\/p>\n
He and Vale met in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
At some point violence erupted.<\/p>\n
Someone struck the glass cabinet.<\/p>\n
Dererick bled near the counter.<\/p>\n
Vale bled near the fireplace.<\/p>\n
A vehicle left the property afterward.<\/p>\n
The garage was empty.<\/p>\n
Vale\u2019s late wife had owned an SUV that remained registered but rarely used.<\/p>\n
It was gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether?\u201d Anna asked.<\/p>\n
Harper shook her head.<\/p>\n
\u201cOr one took the vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich one?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
A search of the house produced more than blood.<\/p>\n
The basement contained an old office.<\/p>\n
Unlike Vale\u2019s polished professional spaces, this room held material he had never intended colleagues to see.<\/p>\n
Handwritten notes.<\/p>\n
Participant photographs.<\/p>\n
Cassette recordings.<\/p>\n
Medication logs.<\/p>\n
Several notebooks dated before Dererick\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n
Susan Bell identified Vale\u2019s handwriting.<\/p>\n
The system\u2019s ancestry lay on those shelves.<\/p>\n
Anna did not need to read every page.<\/p>\n
One photograph was enough.<\/p>\n
A young woman sat in a clinical room with her eyes closed.<\/p>\n
A camera timestamp showed the image had been taken fourteen years earlier.<\/p>\n
On the back Vale had written:<\/p>\n
Subject accepted corrected narrative after 3 prompts.<\/p>\n
Anna stared at the sentence.<\/p>\n
\u201cCorrected narrative?\u201d<\/p>\n
Clare understood before anyone explained.<\/p>\n
Vale had been testing whether a confused person would accept someone else\u2019s version of what had happened.<\/p>\n
Memory dependence.<\/p>\n
Authority replacing recollection.<\/p>\n
Dererick later did the same thing at breakfast.<\/p>\n
You slept well.<\/p>\n
You were exhausted.<\/p>\n
The tea helps.<\/p>\n
He had taken Vale\u2019s clinical method home.<\/p>\n
The realization made Anna feel contaminated by a history she had never known existed.<\/p>\n
Investigators catalogued hundreds of pages.<\/p>\n
One notebook documented Paul Mercer.<\/p>\n
Not as a participant.<\/p>\n
As a problem.<\/p>\n
Mercer had noticed medication discrepancies.<\/p>\n
Vale recorded meetings with him.<\/p>\n
Arguments.<\/p>\n
Threats to report.<\/p>\n
Then one entry:<\/p>\n
P.M. resolved.<\/p>\n
No explanation.<\/p>\n
The date was two days before Paul\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
Harper immediately treated the notebook as major evidence.<\/p>\n
Another volume documented Rachel.<\/p>\n
Vale knew she copied files.<\/p>\n
He suspected she still possessed them.<\/p>\n
Years later, he learned she was living alone after a difficult breakup.<\/p>\n
The next entry referenced D.<\/p>\n
Dererick.<\/p>\n
Anna felt cold.<\/p>\n
Vale had sent Dererick toward Rachel.<\/p>\n
Not for research.<\/p>\n
To recover what she had taken.<\/p>\n
Dererick approached her using the method he later perfected with others.<\/p>\n
Helpfulness.<\/p>\n
Attention.<\/p>\n
Trust.<\/p>\n
He gained access to her home.<\/p>\n
Then began using substances.<\/p>\n
The night Rachel died was supposed to reveal where she kept Vale\u2019s copied files.<\/p>\n
Nolan had never known the true objective.<\/p>\n
Dererick had told him they were testing a new mixture.<\/p>\n
Rachel died while two men were trying to extract information from a woman whose memory and resistance they had deliberately impaired.<\/p>\n
Anna closed her eyes.<\/p>\n
The old accident now had motive.<\/p>\n
The basement also contained material about Emily.<\/p>\n
Vale knew she witnessed the aftermath.<\/p>\n
Dererick had not acted alone when he terrorized her afterward.<\/p>\n
Some of the surveillance photographs came from Vale\u2019s private investigators.<\/p>\n
Emily had been right to keep moving.<\/p>\n
Nolan had underestimated the threat.<\/p>\n
The past was becoming coherent.<\/p>\n
But the present remained dangerous.<\/p>\n
A search dog found Dererick\u2019s blood leading from the kitchen to the garage.<\/p>\n
Vale\u2019s blood ended near the fireplace.<\/p>\n
That suggested Dererick reached the vehicle.<\/p>\n
He may have taken the SUV.<\/p>\n
Highway cameras were alerted.<\/p>\n
The vehicle appeared ninety minutes later traveling west.<\/p>\n
One person visible.<\/p>\n
Driver male.<\/p>\n
Image unclear.<\/p>\n
Then the SUV turned onto a road with sparse camera coverage.<\/p>\n
Police aircraft searched.<\/p>\n
No immediate sighting.<\/p>\n
Inside the lake house, technicians found a compact recorder beneath the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
It was recent.<\/p>\n
Dererick\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The device contained the confrontation.<\/p>\n
Harper listened before allowing Anna to hear selected sections.<\/p>\n
Vale\u2019s voice came first.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve made this impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dererick answered, \u201cYou made it possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vale demanded the case.<\/p>\n
Dererick refused.<\/p>\n
They argued about Rachel.<\/p>\n
Vale accused Dererick of killing her through recklessness.<\/p>\n
Dererick accused Vale of selecting her in the first place.<\/p>\n
Then Vale said something that made Anna\u2019s skin prickle.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were supposed to retrieve the copies, not build a life around the method.\u201d<\/p>\n
There it was.<\/p>\n
A direct acknowledgment.<\/p>\n
Vale knew what Dererick had been doing.<\/p>\n
Dererick laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou liked the results until they had my name on them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The recording captured movement.<\/p>\n
A chair scraping.<\/p>\n
Then Vale:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think Anna makes you different?\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna froze.<\/p>\n
Dererick\u2019s response came after several seconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why are you still talking about her?\u201d<\/p>\n
A crash followed.<\/p>\n
The argument turned physical.<\/p>\n
The recorder fell or was knocked sideways.<\/p>\n
Voices became difficult to hear.<\/p>\n
One phrase remained clear.<\/p>\n
Dererick shouted, \u201cShe gets the truth if I don\u2019t walk out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then glass shattered.<\/p>\n
The recording ended four minutes later.<\/p>\n
Anna listened twice.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe left it deliberately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harper agreed.<\/p>\n
The recorder was positioned where it would survive the confrontation.<\/p>\n
Dererick had created insurance before meeting Vale.<\/p>\n
Again.<\/p>\n
Always leverage.<\/p>\n
But this recording served another purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants me to hear Vale admit it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
Clare answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause he still wants to control the story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dererick had lost his house, archive, associates, and ordinary identity.<\/p>\n
What remained was narrative.<\/p>\n
He wanted Anna to see him as something other than Vale.<\/p>\n
A corrupted student.<\/p>\n
A man who had become attached.<\/p>\n
Perhaps someone who could still expose a greater villain.<\/p>\n
Anna rejected the invitation.<\/p>\n
\u201cVale being worse doesn\u2019t make Dererick better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harper nodded.<\/p>\n
That distinction would matter.<\/p>\n
Especially if Dererick eventually tried to negotiate.<\/p>\n
The missing originals case gave him exactly that possibility.<\/p>\n
By noon, the SUV was found.<\/p>\n
Abandoned near a railway crossing.<\/p>\n
Blood on the driver\u2019s seat matched Dererick.<\/p>\n
Vale\u2019s blood was absent.<\/p>\n
Dererick had taken the vehicle.<\/p>\n
Vale remained unaccounted for separately.<\/p>\n
Two fugitives.<\/p>\n
One case.<\/p>\n
Possibly moving toward different objectives.<\/p>\n
Harper believed Dererick\u2019s injury would eventually force him to seek help.<\/p>\n
Clare was less certain.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knows enough medicine to manage some wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNolan said Vale taught him monitoring, not surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe also spent years around medical supplies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna listened.<\/p>\n
Then remembered something.<\/p>\n
The hidden room at the cabin contained supplies.<\/p>\n
If Dererick needed treatment without a hospital, he might return to a stocked location.<\/p>\n
But the cabin was under police control.<\/p>\n
The warehouse too.<\/p>\n
Where else had supplies been delivered?<\/p>\n
Investigators revisited shipping records.<\/p>\n
One address had been dismissed because it belonged to a legitimate rural veterinary clinic.<\/p>\n
The shipments were addressed to a doctor there.<\/p>\n
Harper contacted the clinic.<\/p>\n
The veterinarian denied ordering them.<\/p>\n
His account had been compromised.<\/p>\n
Packages had been diverted to an exterior delivery locker.<\/p>\n
Security records showed someone collecting them.<\/p>\n
Dererick.<\/p>\n
The locker sat near a farm road west of the abandoned SUV.<\/p>\n
Police searched the surrounding area.<\/p>\n
An old equipment shed stood half a mile away on leased agricultural land.<\/p>\n
Inside they found bloody gauze.<\/p>\n
A discarded shirt.<\/p>\n
Medical adhesive.<\/p>\n
Dererick had treated himself there.<\/p>\n
He had also burned papers.<\/p>\n
One fragment survived.<\/p>\n
A handwritten list of names.<\/p>\n
Kenneth.<\/p>\n
Nolan.<\/p>\n
Marcus.<\/p>\n
Vanessa.<\/p>\n
Clare.<\/p>\n
Anna.<\/p>\n
Some were crossed out.<\/p>\n
Anna\u2019s was not.<\/p>\n
Neither was Vale\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Harper studied the list.<\/p>\n
\u201cCould be priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOr people he intends to contact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clare stared at her own crossed-out name.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy am I crossed out?\u201d<\/p>\n
No one knew.<\/p>\n
Anna thought of the hotel plan.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Clare had ceased being useful once Marcus was arrested.<\/p>\n
Or perhaps Dererick had decided something else.<\/p>\n
The shed contained a prepaid phone wrapper.<\/p>\n
Investigators traced the activation.<\/p>\n
The phone had made one call.<\/p>\n
To a number registered to the journalist Rachel Boone had drafted an email to eight years earlier.<\/p>\n
The journalist, Daniel Kerr, was now an investigative editor.<\/p>\n
He remembered Rachel\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
She never sent the email, but she had called him once.<\/p>\n
She sounded frightened.<\/p>\n
They planned to meet.<\/p>\n
Rachel canceled.<\/p>\n
Days later she died.<\/p>\n
Kerr had always wondered about it.<\/p>\n
Dererick had called him that morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did he say?\u201d Harper asked.<\/p>\n
Kerr answered reluctantly.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe offered me evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMedical research abuse, blackmail, homicide.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhose?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKenneth Vale\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did he want?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe hasn\u2019t said.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna understood the strategy.<\/p>\n
If Dererick could not safely bargain with Vale, he could bargain with publicity.<\/p>\n
The originals case could become a weapon through a journalist.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants Vale exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harper nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he wants something in return.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kerr confirmed it.<\/p>\n
Dererick demanded that any meeting be recorded and that copies of the evidence be released if he was arrested or killed.<\/p>\n
He wanted protection through dissemination.<\/p>\n
Classic leverage, transformed for survival.<\/p>\n
Harper instructed Kerr not to arrange anything independently.<\/p>\n
Kerr agreed.<\/p>\n
Then his phone rang.<\/p>\n
Dererick.<\/p>\n
Police began tracing immediately.<\/p>\n
Kerr answered on speaker.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have five minutes,\u201d Dererick said.<\/p>\n
His voice sounded weaker than before.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou said you had evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen send it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA public record.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything Vale did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kerr glanced toward Harper.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what you did?\u201d<\/p>\n
Silence.<\/p>\n
Then Dererick laughed softly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the problem with Anna. She taught everyone to ask the second question.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna heard the recording live from another room.<\/p>\n
For one impossible moment, the comment sounded like the husband she had known making an affectionate joke.<\/p>\n
That familiarity was more disturbing than rage.<\/p>\n
Kerr continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf your evidence is real, you don\u2019t need a private meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause some of it isn\u2019t digital.\u201d<\/p>\n
The case.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dererick gave a location.<\/p>\n
An abandoned railway depot west of the city.<\/p>\n
Two hours.<\/p>\n
He demanded Kerr come alone.<\/p>\n
Nobody intended to honor that condition.<\/p>\n
Harper mobilized teams.<\/p>\n
Anna was moved again as a precaution.<\/p>\n
The depot was surrounded discreetly well before the meeting.<\/p>\n
Kerr entered carrying only approved equipment.<\/p>\n
Officers waited.<\/p>\n
Two hours passed.<\/p>\n
Dererick did not appear.<\/p>\n
Then Kerr found an envelope beneath a bench.<\/p>\n
Inside was a photograph.<\/p>\n
The metal originals case sat open.<\/p>\n
Visible within it were memory cards, envelopes, sample containers, and documents.<\/p>\n
Beside the case lay that day\u2019s newspaper.<\/p>\n
Proof of possession.<\/p>\n
On the back of the photograph Dererick had written:<\/p>\n
Ask Vale where he buried Paul.<\/p>\n
Anna stared at the message.<\/p>\n
Paul Mercer\u2019s death had been ruled suicide.<\/p>\n
Dererick was saying there was a body somewhere else.<\/p>\n
Which meant the official account of Paul\u2019s death might conceal something even larger.<\/p>\n
Police reached the lake house before sunrise. Dererick was gone. Again. But this time his escape had not been clean. Blood marked the kitchen floor. A chair lay overturned. Broken … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feel-one-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions\/1215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}