None of those names mattered anymore.
They had not come to eat dinner.
They had come because my sister had spent six months working with investigators to place people close enough to Marcus that he would lower his guard.
My message had gone through.
Not cleanly.
Not completely.
But the location pin, the three words, and enough of the audio had reached her.
She had already suspected something was wrong because Marcus kept speaking for me, canceling plans, and refusing every request to let anyone see me.
She did not confront him directly.
She knew that warning him could make him move me or kill me.
Instead, she gave investigators what she had and kept acting as though she believed his excuses.
For six months, they built access slowly.
They learned who Marcus invited into the house.
They learned how he explained my absence.
They waited for a moment when they could enter without alerting him and reach the basement while I was still alive.
