Chapter 2 - the woman listed as Sophie’s mother
Officer Ruiz did not read the certificate aloud.
Not in front of Sophie.
Instead, she placed it inside an evidence sleeve.
Detective Maya Cole arrived twenty minutes later.
She spoke first with Elmer and Rosa.
Then with Sophie separately, accompanied by a child-interview specialist.
Dennis and Trisha still refused to disclose their location.
Their phones were soon switched off.
At the hospital, Sophie was examined.
She was dehydrated, exhausted, and frightened, but doctors expected her to recover physically.
The bruises appeared to be of different ages.
That concerned everyone.
Elmer sat outside her room with Rosa.
“She was staying with Dennis this weekend,” he said.
Rosa nodded.
“That’s what he told us.”
Dennis had called Friday afternoon.
He said he and Trisha were taking Sophie to the coast.
Elmer never questioned it.
Why would he?
Dennis was her father.
Trisha had been raising Sophie since infancy.
Then Detective Cole approached.
“Mr. Walsh.”
Elmer stood.
“What does that certificate say?”
Cole glanced toward Sophie’s door.
“Let’s go somewhere private.”
Inside a consultation room, she placed a copy on the table.
Father:
Dennis Michael Walsh.
Mother:
Leah Catherine Monroe.
Elmer stared.
He knew the name.
He had not heard it in almost six years.
“No.”
Rosa put a hand over her mouth.
Detective Cole noticed.
“You know Leah Monroe?”
“She dated Dennis.”
“How long?”
“Two years. Maybe three.”
“What happened?”
Elmer looked at Rosa.
Dennis had told them Leah left Portland during her pregnancy.
He said the relationship had ended badly.
Then, months later, Dennis arrived at Elmer’s house carrying a newborn.
Sophie.
He told them Leah had signed custody over to him and left the state permanently.
Trisha entered Dennis’s life shortly afterward.
Within a year, they were married.
As Sophie grew older, everyone naturally began calling Trisha Mom.
Nobody corrected it.
Elmer frowned.
“Dennis told us Leah wanted nothing to do with the baby.”
Cole’s expression remained neutral.
“Did you ever see custody paperwork?”
“No.”
“Adoption papers for Trisha?”
“No.”
“Did you ever meet Leah after Sophie was born?”
“No.”
Cole opened another file.
“Leah Monroe was reported missing five years and eight months ago.”
Elmer stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Her sister reported her missing.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Dennis said she moved.”
“Her family says she disappeared.”
Rosa whispered:
“Was she ever found?”
“No.”
The case eventually went cold after emails were sent from Leah’s account saying she needed a fresh start and did not want contact.
But investigators had never verified who wrote them.
Elmer stared at Sophie's birth certificate.
Dennis had not merely hidden the identity of Sophie’s mother.
He had told a story that conflicted with a missing-person case.
“What does Trisha have to do with Leah?”
Cole shook her head.
“That’s what we’re establishing.”
Then she produced another item from the attic.
A phone.
Old.
Cracked.
No active service.
It had been discovered beneath the mattress near the wooden wardrobe.
“Does this belong to you?”
Elmer shook his head.
“Rosa?”
“No.”
The phone was locked.
Sophie had told the child specialist only one thing about it:
“Daddy said I wasn’t supposed to touch the blue phone.”
Detective Cole asked Elmer:
“Did Dennis keep belongings in your attic?”
“Some old boxes.”
“Did he have access while you were away?”
“Yes.”
Cole nodded.
Then:
“We also found a folder downstairs in your study.”
Elmer frowned.
“What folder?”
“A deed folder.”
His stomach tightened.
He kept the original deed to the Portland house in a fire-resistant cabinet.
The cabinet door was open.
The deed folder was lying beside it.
“That was locked.”
“Was anything removed?”
“I don’t know.”
Detective Cole gave him a photograph.
Inside the folder was a prepared property-transfer form.
Grantor:
Elmer Walsh.
Grantee:
Walsh Family Holdings LLC.
His signature line was blank.
But beside it lay a photocopy of his driver’s license.
Rosa whispered:
“What was Dennis doing?”
Elmer did not answer.
A missing woman.
A hidden child.
A birth certificate Trisha desperately wanted concealed.
And paperwork involving Elmer’s house.
Then Detective Cole’s phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression hardened.
Dennis’s SUV had been located at Portland International Airport.
Abandoned in short-term parking.
Neither Dennis nor Trisha appeared on any commercial flight manifest.
But security footage showed them entering the terminal separately—
and leaving again through different doors.
They were not fleeing by plane.
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They were trying to make police think they had.
👉 Dennis and Trisha had abandoned their vehicle at the airport as a decoy, suggesting Sophie’s confinement and the hidden birth certificate were part of a plan already unraveling.
