A Photograph Without a Face
Chapter 06 - A Photograph Without a Face
Grace Monroe had cared for Oliver from infancy.
Celeste dismissed her six months after Elena vanished, accusing her of encouraging the boy’s “unhealthy attachment to fantasy.”
Grace now lived in a retirement community outside the city.
When Elena entered her apartment, the old woman stood so quickly she knocked over a bowl of peppermints.
“I knew you were stubborn,” Grace said. “I did not know you were amphibious.”
Elena laughed and cried at once.
Grace hugged her.
Then she slapped Julian.
Not hard.
Hard enough.
“That is for believing a spreadsheet over the mother of your child.”
Julian accepted it.
Grace had kept records.
She photographed every letter Elena sent to the Vale house before Celeste’s security team removed it. She saved voicemail files, visitor logs, and screenshots of internal emails.
One email from Celeste read:
The child’s fixation will fade once all visual triggers are removed.
Grace refused to remove Elena’s photographs from Oliver’s room.
Celeste did it herself.
Grace saved one picture—Elena holding Oliver on his third birthday—but cut Elena’s face away because security searched for full images. She left only Elena’s hands around the child.
Oliver kept it beneath his mattress.
“He recognized her hands first,” Grace said. “Then her voice.”
Julian looked sick.
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I tried.”
She showed him an email addressed to his private account. It had been redirected automatically to Celeste’s office under an executive safety rule Julian signed after the alleged theft.
He had given Celeste control over anyone trying to challenge her.
Grace also knew about the brass key.
Before the music box was removed, she found Oliver playing with it. The center horse opened a drawer, but the drawer was empty.
Elena frowned.
“I put the drive there.”
Grace took out a photograph.
It showed Celeste kneeling beside the carousel the day after Elena disappeared.
In her hand was a small black device.
“She found it,” Elena said.
“Maybe,” Grace replied. “But she did not destroy everything.”
The photograph’s background reflected in the music box mirror.
A man stood behind Celeste.
Dr. Aaron Pike.
The physician who signed Elena’s premature death certificate.
Julian recognized the ring on his hand.
It carried the crest of the Vale Medical Trust.
Julian called the hospital and asked where Pike was.
The answer came quickly.
Dr. Pike had not reported to work since the gala.
His apartment was empty.
His passport showed he boarded no flight.
His car was found beneath a bridge with the driver’s door open.
May you like
No body.
Celeste’s perfect story was losing witnesses.
