Three Years Missing
Chapter 04 - Three Years Missing
Elena was released pending a bail hearing because the prosecution could not explain why a legally dead woman had an active arrest warrant.
Nora took her to a small apartment above a closed tailor shop.
“The owner owes me for getting his brother out of a parking-ticket apocalypse,” Nora said. “The plumbing complains, but the locks are good.”
Elena stood in the single bedroom.
There was a bed.
She had slept in beds during the past three years, but never without calculating how quickly they could be taken away.
Nora set a grocery bag on the counter.
“I bought eggs, bread, and a vegetable that looked responsible.”
Elena held up a zucchini.
“That is not responsible. It is confused.”
“Excellent. You still have judgment.”
The humor lasted only seconds.
Elena found a children’s drawing beneath the groceries.
A lighthouse in blue crayon.
Oliver had sent it through Julian’s attorney.
On the back he had written:
I knew you were alive because dead people do not send warm dreams.
Elena sat on the kitchen floor.
Nora waited nearby without touching her.
When the tears ended, Elena told the part of the story she had avoided.
She had not been driving alone the night of the crash.
Celeste was in the passenger seat.
They had argued at the foundation office. Elena had discovered payments to fake foster-care vendors, all approved by Celeste through a consulting company called North Lantern.
Elena copied the records to a drive and confronted her.
Celeste claimed Evelyn ordered the transfers to create an off-book fund for political donations. She asked Elena to meet privately and promised to explain everything.
In the car, Celeste gave her a bottle of water.
Elena remembered the bitter taste.
She remembered headlights behind them.
She remembered Celeste reaching across and pulling the steering wheel.
Then water.
“When I woke,” Elena said, “everyone said Celeste had been at a board dinner all night.”
“She had witnesses?”
“Twelve.”
“Rich people collect alibis the way normal people collect grocery points.”
Elena smiled despite herself.
Nora asked where the copied drive was.
“I hid it before I left the office.”
“Where?”
“In a place Oliver loved.”
The Vale ballroom had once been a private museum. Near the eastern wall stood an antique music box shaped like a miniature carousel. Oliver used to hide toy animals inside it.
Elena placed the drive beneath the central horse.
The ballroom had been renovated since.
The carousel was gone.
Nora called Julian.
He answered immediately.
When she asked about the music box, he went silent.
Celeste had ordered it removed after Elena’s disappearance.
“Where is it now?” Nora asked.
Julian looked through old inventory records.
The item had been donated to the Vale Children’s Hospital.
A demolition permit showed the old pediatric wing would be torn down in forty-eight hours.
May you like
Elena stared at Nora.
Someone had filed the permit the morning after the gala.
