Chapter 5 - The Empty Chair
Alejandro ripped the medical sensor from his finger and stood.
Dr. Shah blocked him.
“Sit down.”
“Emma is missing.”
Elena burst through the side door carrying a blanket.
“She isn’t missing. She was cold, so I took her to the children’s room.”
Alejandro stopped.
Two guards appeared behind Elena with Emma between them. The little girl was awake and rubbing her eyes.
“Why is everyone yelling?” she asked.
Relief passed through the room, but it lasted only a moment.
Sofia’s warning still hung in Alejandro’s mind.
The people who already know Emma saw me.
He knelt in front of her.
“Emma, did anyone speak to you after you entered the study?”
She shook her head.
“Did anyone tell you not to talk about the lady?”
Another shake.
“Did the lady say anything to you?”
Emma looked down at her shoes.
Elena touched her shoulder. “You can tell us.”
“She said I wasn’t supposed to be there.”
Alejandro’s voice remained calm.
“When?”
“Before Mr. Moretti came.”
Everyone looked at her.
“You were inside the study before I entered?” Alejandro asked.
Emma nodded.
“I went to get Bunny.”
Elena frowned. “You left Bunny in the car.”
“No. Bunny was in the story room.”
Alejandro’s private study contained a reading corner where Emma sometimes played while Elena worked. She must have left the toy there earlier in the evening.
“What happened when you went inside?” Matteo asked.
Emma looked toward him, then back at Alejandro.
“The lady had your glass.”
“Sofia?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it the lady on the tablet?”
Emma hesitated.
“She had the same face.”
A strange answer.
“What do you mean?” Elena asked.
Emma touched her own cheek.
“Her face was the same, but her smell was wrong.”
Dr. Shah leaned closer.
“What did she smell like?”
“Oranges.”
Elena looked at Alejandro.
Sofia always wore a rose perfume imported from France. The scent remained in every room after she left.
“Anything else?” Alejandro asked.
“Her shoes clicked.”
Sofia had attended the foundation dinner in soft suede heels. Alejandro remembered because she had complained that the new shoes were too quiet and made her feel as though she were walking barefoot.
“Could someone have been dressed as Sofia?” Matteo asked.
Mara answered through the computer.
“Or the footage could have been altered.”
They reviewed the hidden camera recording frame by frame.
At normal speed, the woman looked exactly like Sofia.
Slowed down, tiny inconsistencies appeared. Her earrings blurred when she turned. The outline of her jaw shifted for less than a second. Light passed strangely across her eyes.
“A face replacement,” Mara said. “Sophisticated, but not perfect.”
“So the camera lied,” Elena said.
“The image lied,” Mara corrected. “The woman was real.”
Emma had seen someone wearing Sofia’s face.
Or at least something resembling it.
Matteo retrieved the audio from the stuffed rabbit. The female voice matched Sofia, but the recording was too distorted to prove authenticity. The speaker could have used a voice changer.
Alejandro thought about Sofia’s call.
She had sounded frightened.
That did not make her innocent.
It made the situation more dangerous.
Mara completed the phone trace. The call had come from an abandoned parking garage twelve miles from the estate.
Security teams searched the structure.
They found Sofia’s black sedan on the lowest level.
The driver’s door was open.
Her silver evening bag lay on the ground.
Inside was the bracelet from the camera footage, a bottle of rose perfume, and a sealed syringe case containing traces of walnut protein.
There was also blood on the steering wheel.
No Sofia.
No phone.
No sign of where she had gone.
Matteo examined the live photographs.
“This scene was arranged.”
“To make her look guilty?” Elena asked.
“Or to make us believe she was taken.”
A guard entered carrying a large envelope.
“This was found beneath the driver’s seat.”
Alejandro opened it.
Inside were photographs of Emma leaving preschool, Emma playing in the estate garden, and Emma sleeping in Elena’s car.
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Across the final photograph, someone had written six words in black ink.
THE CHILD HEARD MORE THAN SHE KNOWS.
