Chapter 4 - The Dead Man's Voice)
Ethan switched the call to speaker.
"Daniel?"
Silence.
Then a soft laugh.
"You always were quick."
Elena grabbed the edge of the desk.
"No."
The voice continued.
"Hello, Elena."
She went pale.
Lily stared at her mother.
Victoria whispered, "Hang up."
Daniel heard her.
"Victoria. Still giving orders in a house you don't own?"
Ethan turned toward her.
Victoria's face hardened.
"You're supposed to be dead."
"So are many useful truths."
"Where are you?"
"Close enough."
Ethan moved toward the monitor.
The man outside had disappeared.
"Why have you been watching Elena?"
"Wrong question."
"What is the right one?"
"Why did your father spend the last year of his life searching for me?"
The line went dead.
Ethan called the number.
Disconnected.
Victoria walked toward the exit.
Ethan blocked her.
"You're staying."
"You don't command me."
"In this house tonight, I do."
Victoria stared at him.
Then something broke.
Not anger.
Exhaustion.
She sat against the wall.
"You want the truth?"
"Yes."
"You won't like it."
"Try me."
Victoria looked at Elena.
"Seven years ago, Daniel came to me."
Elena's stomach tightened.
"You were still Ethan's friend then."
"I was everyone's friend."
"You were my friend."
Victoria looked away.
"Yes."
The admission sounded ashamed.
Daniel told Victoria that Elena was stealing documents from Mercer Holdings.
At first, Victoria hadn't believed him.
Then Daniel showed her bank transfers.
Photographs.
Emails.
Enough evidence to make Elena look guilty.
"He said Elena was using Ethan to get inside the company."
Elena shook her head.
"I never even worked there."
"That was the point. Nobody would suspect you."
Ethan folded his arms.
"And you believed him?"
"I was twenty-five, jealous and stupid."
"Jealous?"
Victoria laughed without humor.
"I loved you."
Elena stared.
Victoria continued.
"You talked about Elena constantly. Marriage. Children. Moving away from the city. You were happy in a way I had never seen."
"So you helped Daniel destroy us."
"No."
She swallowed.
"I gave him information."
"What information?"
"Where Elena stayed. Your schedules. When your father traveled."
Elena's hands curled.
"Did you tell him about the pregnancy?"
"I didn't know."
"You knew tonight."
"I suspected after seeing Lily's photograph."
"What photograph?"
Victoria froze.
Ethan stepped closer.
"What photograph?"
She reached into her dress pocket and removed a folded piece of paper.
It wasn't a photograph.
It was a screenshot printed from a school website.
Lily standing beside classmates.
Elena's name listed beneath the picture as parent volunteer.
Someone had mailed it to Victoria six months earlier.
On the back was handwritten text.
She's coming home.
Ethan read it twice.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I was afraid."
"Of Lily?"
"Of what she meant."
Elena stared at her.
"What does she mean?"
Victoria looked toward the surveillance screens.
"Your father eventually realized Daniel's evidence was fake. By then Elena had disappeared."
"Because my father forced her out."
"Initially."
Elena frowned.
"Initially?"
Victoria took a breath.
"Your father paid Daniel to frighten you away. He thought you were connected to corporate theft. Daniel went further."
Elena remembered the motel.
The anonymous calls.
The man following her car.
The envelope containing a photograph of Ethan with a red circle around his face.
Leave or he dies.
She hadn't known whom to believe.
Victoria continued.
"Your father tried to find you after realizing the truth. Daniel told him you'd fled the country."
"Why would Daniel care?"
"Because Elena had something."
Elena shook her head.
"I had nothing."
"Your apartment was searched after you disappeared."
"What was missing?"
Victoria stared at her.
"A flash drive."
Elena laughed once.
"I never owned one."
Lily tugged Elena's sleeve.
"Mom?"
Elena bent.
"What?"
"When Grandma Rosa died, you gave me her music box."
Elena nodded slowly.
"Yes."
"There's a little computer thing inside it."
Everyone went still.
Elena stared at Lily.
"What?"
"The black thing."
"Where did you see it?"
"I opened the bottom once."
Elena's mind raced.
Her mother had received Elena's belongings after she vanished.
Boxes from her apartment.
Clothes.
Books.
Kitchen items.
A wooden music box Ethan had given her.
Elena believed it had been empty.
She had given it to Lily after Rosa died.
"Where is the music box now?"
Lily looked at the backpack.
"Here."
Victoria stood.
"No."
Elena unzipped Lily's bag.
Beneath a sweater sat the small wooden box.
Ethan recognized it immediately.
"I gave you that."
"Our first Christmas."
Elena opened the music compartment.
Nothing unusual.
Lily turned it over and pressed a hidden latch.
A wooden panel slid free.
Inside was a tiny black flash drive.
Victoria backed away.
"That's what Daniel wants."
Ethan took it.
"What's on it?"
Nobody knew.
One surveillance monitor went black.
Then another.
Then another.
Daniel's voice came through the speakers without the phone ringing.
"Thank you, Lily."
May you like
Elena pulled her daughter close.
The lights went out.
