Chapter 48 - Cedar Creek, Nevada Thursday, August 1, 2024

Chapter 48

Cedar Creek, Nevada Thursday, August 1, 2024

AFTER SLOAN LEFT THE CEDAR CREEK INN, SHE DROPPED ERIC AT the sheriff’s office. Margot Gray couldn’t have gotten far. Eric would put his deputies on the lookout for an older model Mazda and alert the Nevada Highway Patrol. If Margot was still in town, they’d find her. If she were on the road, they’d bring her in. Eric also planned to run the phone number Margot had provided that belonged to Guy Menendez.

In the meantime, Sloan knew it wouldn’t be long before the press found her rental house. She’d accepted Eric’s offer to lay low at his cabin in the foothills. She needed to pack a few things first, so she headed back to her rental house with a heavy mix of disappointment and frustration. As she pulled into the driveway, the sun was setting, lighting the clouds above the Sierra Nevada Mountains in an eerie glow of crimson that screamed to Sloan that the opportunity to unlock the secrets of her past was bleeding away.

Inside, she grabbed a Diet Dr. Pepper and sat at the kitchen table. She found Special Agent John Michaels’s card and called him. Over a fifteen-minute conversation, she told him about Margot Gray, aka Wendy Downing. She gave him Margot’s description and the make and model of the car she was driving. She read off the phone number that was believed to belong to Guy Menendez and answered a slew of questions from Agent Michaels.

“Stamos is the sheriff out there in Harrison County?” Michaels asked.

“Yes,” Sloan said. “He and I have been . . . not exactly working together, but in close contact since I’ve been out here.”

“Something I need to know about?”

Sloan thought about Eric’s father and the mysterious link between Baker Jauncey’s death thirty years earlier and the disappearance of her and her birth parents. She wouldn’t know where to start.

“Maybe at some point,” she said. “But let’s concentrate on Margot Gray for now.”

“Give me the day. I’ll be in touch in the morning. Anything else?”

“Yeah. How did my story leak?”

“I’m launching an internal investigation to figure that out. But right now I’m going to run with the leads you’ve given me.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

Sloan ended the call just as she heard a car door slam outside. She went to the living room window and peeked through the plantation shutters.

“Shit.”

A CBS Channel 4 news van was parked outside. The back doors were open, and a man pulled equipment from the van. Before Sloan could look away, another news van pulled down the road and parked across the street. A reporter opened the door and hurried across the front lawn. Sloan snapped the shutters closed as the woman reached the front stoop and knocked on the door.

“Shit, shit!” Sloan whispered to herself.

“Sloan Hastings?” the reporter yelled. “Monica Campbell with NBC News. We’re hoping to speak with you about the alleged connection to baby Charlotte Margolis and her parents, who are still missing.”

Her phone buzzed in her hand and startled her. She looked at the screen and saw that Nora was calling. She walked into the kitchen and answered in a whisper.

“Hello?”

“I just spoke with Tilly. News vans are parked outside her house and reporters are milling around.”

“Yeah, here, too. I’m at my rental and two news vans just pulled up. Some lunatic is pounding on my front door as we speak.”

“I’m coming over,” Nora said.

“To do what?”

“Rescue you. Stay put. I’ll be there in a few minutes. And pack your stuff, you’re not staying there.”

The call ended and Sloan went back to the front window. A third van had pulled to the curb. As the reporter continued to pound on the front door, Sloan heard more knocking at the back door off the kitchen.

“Relentless,” she said to herself.

She briefly considered opening the door and giving them the sound bite they were all so desperate for, and the video footage and first live images they wanted so badly. But Sloan knew it wouldn’t end with a simple statement. They’d want answers that Sloan did not have.

She ran upstairs and packed her suitcase, emptying the drawers she had filled just a few days before. She cleared out the bathroom and lugged her suitcase down the stairs just as her phone buzzed with a text message from Nora.

“I’m pulling up now.”

Sloan watched through the front window as Nora tore into the driveway and screeched to a stop at an odd angle, the front wheels on the grass. She opened the driver’s side door and stormed past the reporters who thrust microphones in her face and shouted questions as cameras rolled and recorded everything. Nora kept them at bay with an opened palm and a shake of her head until she was on the front porch, when Sloan opened the door and pulled her inside.

“This is insane,” Sloan said.

The weight of the situation was beginning to dawn on her. Baby Charlotte Margolis had dominated the news and tabloids for nearly a year after she and her parents disappeared, and even this many decades later the American public was obsessed with her story. And now they were desperate for the sequel—the return of baby Charlotte Margolis.

“You’re like a famous movie star dodging the paparazzi.” Nora looked down and saw Sloan’s bag. “Good, you’re packed.”

Nora grabbed Sloan’s suitcase.

“Follow me.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re getting the hell out of here.”

“They’ll just follow us.”

“Unlikely,” Nora said. “Just trust me. Ready?”

Sloan nodded. Nora opened the front door and ran down the steps with Sloan’s suitcase in tow and Sloan close behind.

“Sloan Hastings!” one of the reporters yelled. “Are you baby Charlotte Margolis?”

“Where are Preston and Annabelle Margolis?” another reporter yelled.

Sloan ignored the questions as she raced to Nora’s car, ripped open the passenger’s side door, and quickly climbed in. Nora threw the suitcase into the backseat, sat behind the wheel, and slammed her door closed. The engine was still running, and she dropped the car into reverse, screeching her tires as she backed into the street and scattering the cameramen who had encroached on the vehicle. When she was clear, she put the car into drive and sped off. It took just a moment for the news crews to throw their equipment into the backs of the vans and start their pursuit. But by then it was too late.

As the vans spun around the cul-de-sac, a Ford F150 skidded to a stop at the end of the street, blocking the crews from exiting the neighborhood. The drivers of each of the three vans laid on their horns. When the F150 stayed put, one of the drivers got out and approached the pickup truck.

“Get the hell out of the way!”

The window of the F150 rolled down to reveal Lester Strange, the Margolis family’s longtime handyman.

“No can do,” Lester said.