Chapter 5 - THE HUNT FOR LAURA MONROEBy 4:00 AM, Robert had mobilized every private investigator and corporate asset at his disposal.
Victoria Shaw, sensing the walls closing in, had already vanished from her Century City penthouse, leaving behind a scorched-earth trail of deleted hard drives and canceled credit cards. But finding Victoria was secondary.
Finding Laura became an obsession.
At 9:00 AM, a breakthrough came. One of Robert’s investigators tracked a bus ticket purchased with cash from a Santa Barbara terminal to a small, coastal logging town three hours north: Mendocino.
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Robert didn't wait for his driver. He grabbed the keys to his personal SUV and drove north into the roaring coastal storm, chasing a ghost through sheets of blinding rain.
Meanwhile, back at the estate, Ernest Vale took his last official breath of morning air and slipped into a deep, unresponsive coma. Dr. Harrison called Robert’s mobile phone three times, but the calls went unanswered as Robert raced deeper into the northern wilderness, guided only by a desperate prayer and a battered notebook.
