Chapter 8 - ELENA’S SECRET
Arthur stared at Elena.
“What did he mean?”
Detective Reed stepped between them.
“Arthur.”
“No. I want an answer.”
Elena looked toward the open office door.
“Not here.”
“Right here.”
“Arthur—”
“My dead father just called me and told me to ask why you’re in my house.”
Elena’s eyes hardened.
“Fine.”
She took a breath.
“I didn’t get your renovation job by accident.”
Arthur said nothing.
“I applied for it because of this house.”
“Why?”
“My sister.”
Reed watched her carefully.
“What about your sister?”
“Her name was Sofia Ramirez.”
Reed frowned.
Arthur looked at the spreadsheet in his memory.
Eleven names.
“Was she on the list?”
Elena nodded.
“Number three.”
Arthur sat down heavily.
“She disappeared twelve years ago.”
“How old?”
“Sixteen.”
“And you think my father took her?”
“I know someone did.”
Arthur stared at her.
“You knew this house was connected?”
“I suspected it.”
“For how long?”
“Eight months.”
Arthur laughed bitterly.
“Everybody around me has a secret.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“You lied to get inside my home.”
“Yes.”
“You watched my family.”
“Yes.”
“And when you heard Leo—”
“I smashed the wall open.”
That stopped him.
Elena stepped closer.
“I could have kept digging for answers. I could have waited for Daniel. I could have followed Victoria. I didn’t. The second I knew a child was alive behind that wall, everything else stopped mattering.”
Arthur looked at her.
She was right.
Again.
But trust had become something Arthur no longer knew how to give.
Reed asked, “What do you know about Sofia?”
Elena reached into her jacket and handed him an old photograph.
A teenage girl smiled at the camera.
“She went to a private school across town. One night she called me from a party and asked me to pick her up.”
“What happened?”
“I was nineteen. I was working. I told her to call Mom.”
Elena swallowed.
“She said Mom would kill her because she’d been drinking.”
Her voice cracked.
“So I told her I’d come in an hour.”
Arthur lowered his eyes.
“When I got there, she was gone.”
“Any witnesses?”
“One.”
“Who?”
Elena looked at Arthur.
“Nolan.”
Arthur’s head snapped up.
“My brother?”
“He told police Sofia left with a man in a dark sedan.”
Arthur whispered, “He never told me.”
“Why would he?”
Elena’s jaw tightened.
“I spent twelve years looking for that car.”
Reed said, “Did you find it?”
“No.”
She looked toward Daniel’s office.
“But I found something better.”
She walked to a cabinet and pulled open the bottom door.
Inside were VHS tapes and hard drives.
Each one had a date.
Elena froze.
One tape had a handwritten label.
SOFIA R. — 06/14.
She reached for it.
Reed stopped her.
“Let forensic handle it.”
Elena stared at him.
“That’s my sister.”
“I know.”
“She could be alive.”
“We don’t know that.”
Arthur looked at the shelves.
There were dozens of tapes.
Then he noticed one that was newer than the rest.
Its label read:
ARTHUR — FINAL PHASE.
He pulled it out.
Elena whispered, “Arthur…”
His face went pale.
“What the hell is the final phase?”
Behind them, the basement lights suddenly went out.
May you like
Then someone locked the office door from the outside.
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