Chapter 4 - The Book No One Remembered
Adrien did not ask Elena to repeat herself.
He simply stared at her.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
Daniel’s head snapped toward her.
“What?”
Elena ignored him.
“It was winter.”
She looked at the black ledger in her hands.
“Maybe January.”
“Describe him.”
“Late sixties.”
Adrien waited.
“Gray wool coat.”
His expression shifted.
“Silver-handled cane.”
Marcus looked at him.
“That was him.”
Elena’s pulse accelerated.
“He brought a Bible.”
“What kind?”
“Family Bible.”
“Brown leather?”
“I think so.”
“Embossed spine?”
“Yes.”
Adrien closed his eyes briefly.
“That belonged to my mother.”
The basement seemed suddenly smaller.
Elena remembered the book clearly now.
The leather had been brittle.
The spine separated.
Several pages had water damage.
The old man had treated it differently from wealthy collectors who brought her valuable objects.
Not like something expensive.
Like something sacred.
“He said it had survived a house fire.”
Adrien nodded.
“Our old home burned when I was seventeen.”
Elena looked at him.
“Your father never gave me his name.”
“He rarely did when he wanted privacy.”
“What did he call himself?”
“Arthur.”
Adrien smiled without amusement.
“That was his middle name.”
Daniel twisted against Marcus’s grip.
“This is ridiculous.”
Elena turned.
“What?”
“You think his father randomly walked into your studio?”
“No.”
The answer came from Adrien.
Everyone looked at him.
“He didn’t do random.”
Daniel went quiet.
Adrien stepped toward Elena.
“What else did he say?”
She searched her memory.
“He asked about hiding pages.”
“Yes.”
“I thought he was making conversation.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That paper is harder to hide than people think.”
Adrien waited.
“I said secret compartments are usually the first thing thieves search.”
“And?”
Elena swallowed.
“I told him the safest hiding place is sometimes inside something nobody thinks is important.”
Marcus frowned.
“Like what?”
“A damaged book.”
Adrien’s eyes sharpened.
Elena continued.
“He asked whether pages could be inserted into another book without looking obvious.”
“Can they?”
“Yes.”
Daniel went pale.
Elena noticed.
“What?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“You know something.”
“No.”
She walked toward him.
“Daniel.”
He looked away.
Then it hit her.
“My studio.”
Adrien turned.
“What about it?”
Elena looked at Daniel.
“You’ve been asking me to sell it.”
Daniel’s silence answered.
“You said the neighborhood was declining.”
Nothing.
“You said the building needed too many repairs.”
Nothing.
“You even found a buyer.”
Adrien looked at Daniel.
“Who?”
Elena answered.
“Harrow Development.”
Evelyn immediately reached for her tablet.
Adrien’s face darkened.
“Harrow is one of Sebastian’s companies.”
Elena stared at him.
The pieces slammed together.
Daniel had not wanted her to sell because the studio was failing.
He wanted control of the building.
Because something might be hidden there.
She backed away from him.
“You knew.”
Daniel shook his head.
“I suspected.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“You knew your partner’s father had visited my studio?”
“Sebastian showed me a photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“His father leaving your shop.”
Elena felt suddenly sick.
“So this whole time…”
She could barely finish.
“You didn’t marry me because of that.”
Daniel looked offended.
“Of course not.”
Adrien watched him carefully.
Elena asked, “Did you know my connection to the Vale family before we married?”
“No.”
That answer came immediately.
She believed it.
Strangely, that made everything worse.
Their marriage had once been real.
Daniel had destroyed it later.
“When did you find out?”
“Two years ago.”
Around the same time his career accelerated.
Around the same time he began taking unexplained trips.
Around the same time their marriage changed.
Elena whispered, “That was when you stopped wanting children.”
Daniel’s expression shifted.
She felt tears threaten.
Not because she wanted him back.
Because she suddenly understood dozens of moments she had blamed herself for.
They had talked about children for years.
Then Daniel began saying they needed more money.
More stability.
Better timing.
Eventually he stopped discussing it completely.
Vanessa lowered her eyes.
Elena looked at her stomach.
Life had a cruel sense of symmetry.
Adrien spoke.
“We need to go to the studio.”
Daniel immediately shook his head.
“No.”
Nobody cared.
“We should wait.”
Adrien looked at him.
“For?”
“Sebastian may be watching it.”
“That’s why we go now.”
Daniel laughed nervously.
“You think you’re untouchable.”
“No.”
Adrien’s voice was quiet.
“I think waiting gives my brother time to reach the building first.”
Elena’s chest tightened.
“My assistant.”
“What?”
“My assistant, Maya.”
Elena reached for her phone.
“She sometimes works late.”
It was after eleven.
She called.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
A third time.
Voicemail.
Her stomach dropped.
“Maya always answers me.”
Adrien turned to Marcus.
“Call local security.”
Marcus was already moving.
Elena tried again.
Still nothing.
Daniel said, “She probably went home.”
Elena looked at him.
“You hope she did.”
Twenty minutes later they reached Elena’s conservation studio.
The block was dark.
Most shops were closed.
Elena saw immediately that something was wrong.
The front door was open.
Not wide.
Only a few inches.
But she never left it unlocked.
Adrien stopped her before she crossed the sidewalk.
“Stay here.”
“That is my studio.”
“And someone may be inside.”
He looked at Marcus.
Marcus entered with two security men.
Elena waited beside the SUV.
Every second hurt.
Then Marcus reappeared.
“Clear.”
Elena ran inside.
The studio looked as if a storm had passed through it.
Drawers open.
Boxes overturned.
Cabinet doors hanging loose.
Old books scattered across the floor.
Her restoration tools dumped from trays.
“No.”
She moved between the tables.
Years of careful work had been thrown aside in minutes.
A seventeenth-century prayer book lay open beneath a chair.
She lifted it gently.
One page was torn.
Her eyes filled.
Adrien stood behind her.
“Can it be fixed?”
“Yes.”
Her voice broke.
“But it shouldn’t have happened.”
He understood that the answer was about more than the book.
Elena looked toward the rear room.
“Maya?”
Nothing.
She hurried into the office.
Maya was not there.
But her purse was.
Phone too.
Elena picked it up.
“Maya never leaves without these.”
Marcus examined the back door.
“Forced.”
Adrien’s expression hardened.
Elena turned.
“They took her.”
“We don’t know that.”
“You don’t leave without your phone.”
Adrien nodded once.
“No.”
Elena faced Daniel.
“Was Sebastian here?”
“How would I know?”
“Because everything tonight keeps leading back to you.”
Daniel looked exhausted.
“I did not kidnap your assistant.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
His expression told her enough.
Adrien noticed.
“You know Sebastian’s methods.”
Daniel remained silent.
“Does he hurt people?”
Daniel glanced toward Elena.
“I don’t know.”
She stepped closer.
“Don’t protect me from the answer.”
He swallowed.
“Yes.”
Her knees weakened.
Adrien steadied her.
Elena pulled away immediately.
Not because she disliked his touch.
Because she refused to become someone else’s responsibility.
“Where would he take her?”
Daniel shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Marcus called police.
Adrien walked slowly through the damaged studio.
“What books did my father bring?”
“Only one.”
“Where is it?”
Elena stared at him.
“I returned it.”
“To him?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
Then hesitated.
“What?”
“When I restored the Bible, several signatures were loose.”
“Meaning?”
“Groups of pages.”
She walked toward a cabinet.
“I photographed every stage.”
Daniel stiffened.
Elena saw it.
“You didn’t know that.”
“Know what?”
“That I keep photographic documentation.”
She opened her computer.
The screen had been smashed.
Adrien cursed.
Elena smiled faintly.
“Daniel would know I back everything up locally.”
She reached beneath a shelf and removed a small external drive.
“But he never cared enough about my work to know I keep a second archive off the network.”
Daniel stared.
She connected the drive to Maya’s spare laptop.
Folders appeared.
2019.
2020.
2021.
2022.
She opened the year.
Then January.
There it was.
VALE, ARTHUR - FAMILY BIBLE.
Adrien leaned closer.
Elena opened the first image.
His father’s hands rested beside the damaged book.
Adrien stopped breathing for a second.
Elena pretended not to notice.
She moved through the photographs.
Front cover.
Spine.
Endpapers.
Damaged signatures.
Then she stopped.
One picture showed the inside back cover.
Something had been written beneath the leather lining.
A sequence of numbers.
Marcus leaned in.
“Account?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Too short.”
Elena zoomed in.
4-18-9-1-18.
Adrien frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Elena stared at the numbers.
Then she looked toward the studio shelves.
“It could be letters.”
Marcus counted.
“D-R-I-A-R?”
“No.”
Elena shook her head.
“What if the numbers are page references?”
Adrien watched her.
She opened the repair log.
Her own notes appeared beside each image.
Then a handwritten annotation from Arthur.
P. 418.
Line 9.
Word 1.
P. 18.
Elena whispered, “It’s a book cipher.”
Daniel suddenly moved.
He grabbed the external drive.
Marcus caught him before he reached the door.
The drive flew from his hand.
It struck the floor.
Elena gasped.
Adrien grabbed Daniel by the collar.
“What is the cipher?”
Daniel struggled.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why did you try to take it?”
“Because Sebastian will kill all of us if you decode it.”
Silence.
Elena stepped closer.
“Where is Maya?”
Daniel stared at her.
His anger disappeared.
For the first time that night, he looked truly ashamed.
“I think Sebastian took her.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You always know more than you say.”
“Elena—”
“WHERE?”
Her voice cracked through the studio.
Daniel flinched.
Then he whispered, “The old printing warehouse.”
Adrien released him.
Marcus immediately called security.
Elena grabbed her coat.
Adrien stopped her.
“You’re not going.”
She looked at him.
“My assistant is there because of me.”
“You don’t know who’s waiting.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
The words came too quickly.
They both noticed.
Adrien’s expression changed.
Elena stared at him.
Then her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone went silent.
Elena answered.
“Hello?”
A man laughed softly.
“Mrs. Carter.”
Adrien’s face hardened.
The voice continued.
“I hear my brother finally opened the door for you.”
Elena knew immediately.
Sebastian Vale.
“Where is Maya?”
“Safe.”
“Let me hear her.”
A pause.
Then Maya’s frightened voice.
“Elena?”
Elena gripped the phone.
“Maya.”
“I’m okay.”
The line changed hands.
Sebastian returned.
“If you want her to stay that way, bring me the black ledger.”
Adrien shook his head.
Elena looked at him.
Sebastian continued.
“And the archive drive.”
“What do you want with them?”
“What my brother’s been hiding for twelve years.”
Adrien stepped closer.
Elena put the phone on speaker.
Sebastian laughed.
“Hello, brother.”
Adrien’s voice turned cold.
“Let her go.”
“Bring Dad’s ledger.”
“It’s incomplete.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you want it?”
“Because Elena has the missing pages.”
Everyone looked at her.
She froze.
“I don’t.”
Sebastian laughed.
“Oh, Elena.”
May you like
“You’ve had them for three years.”
The line went dead.
