Chapter 6 - What Happened at the Well
Elena asked to speak with David.
He refused.
She asked again the next day.
He refused again.
On the third request, her attorney delivered a handwritten note.
DAVID, IF MARK REACHES LEO BEFORE I TELL YOU EVERYTHING, YOU MAY LOSE HIM AGAIN.
David went.
The county detention facility smelled of disinfectant and burnt coffee.
Elena entered the interview room wearing gray jail clothes.
No makeup.
No jewelry.
No carefully styled hair.
David almost did not recognize her.
She sat across from him behind a bolted table.
“You look terrible,” she said.
David stared.
“So does my son.”
Her eyes dropped.
“I deserved that.”
“That wasn’t an insult.”
“It was a fact.”
Elena swallowed.
“How is he?”
“You don’t get to ask.”
“I kept him alive.”
“You kept him in a hole.”
“I know.”
“You told him I stopped looking.”
Her eyes filled.
“I know.”
“You told him Sarah gave away his room.”
“I know.”
“You made him afraid of us.”
“I needed him dependent on me.”
The honesty hit David harder than excuses would have.
“Why?”
Elena looked toward the observation window.
“Because if he trusted you, he would keep trying to escape.”
David leaned forward.
“He was eight.”
“I know.”
“You planned that room for Rachel.”
Elena’s face changed.
“So you found the drive.”
“Leo hid it.”
A small, broken smile touched her mouth.
“Of course he did.”
“Don’t sound proud of him.”
“I am proud of him.”
“You don’t get to be.”
She closed her eyes.
David waited.
Finally she said, “Rachel came to me first.”
“About the money?”
“Yes.”
“Did you steal it?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
“How much?”
“Almost four million.”
“Why?”
Elena laughed bitterly.
“You want the short version or the pathetic one?”
“The truth.”
“I made investments.”
“They failed.”
“I borrowed against property.”
“I hid losses.”
“Then I borrowed to cover the borrowing.”
“Eventually I couldn’t keep the numbers straight.”
“So you stole from children.”
“I told myself I was borrowing.”
“From Leo and Maya.”
“Yes.”
“You planned to put Rachel in that room.”
Elena stared at her hands.
“I asked Mark how to scare her.”
“That’s not what the blueprints say.”
“He went further than I expected.”
“But you paid for it.”
“Yes.”
“Did you intend to imprison her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
Elena’s eyes lifted.
“I was desperate.”
“I had spent my entire life being the daughter who never made mistakes.”
“Do you understand what that does to someone?”
David stared.
“No.”
“And I don’t care.”
Elena nodded.
“That’s fair.”
“What happened at the well?”
She took a breath.
“Rachel demanded I confess to Dad.”
“I begged her for forty-eight hours.”
“She refused.”
“We argued.”
“She said she had already copied everything.”
“Then?”
“She walked away.”
“I grabbed her arm.”
“She pulled free.”
“She slapped me.”
“And?”
Elena’s voice dropped.
“I shoved her.”
David felt sick.
“She fell backward against the stone rim.”
“Did she fall into the well?”
“No.”
“She hit her head.”
“Was she alive?”
Elena began crying.
“For a few minutes.”
David’s jaw tightened.
“You could have called an ambulance.”
“I tried.”
“Mark took my phone.”
“Why?”
“He said if Rachel woke up, everything was over.”
“Then what happened?”
“Dad arrived.”
“How?”
“I called him before Mark took the phone.”
“What did Dad say?”
“He told Mark to handle it.”
David’s skin prickled.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“Dad took me into the house.”
“I was hysterical.”
“When I came back outside, Rachel was gone.”
“And Leo?”
Elena shut her eyes.
“I didn’t know he had seen anything.”
“Until when?”
“Mark brought him into the garage.”
David’s hands curled.
“What was Mark doing to him?”
“Nothing.”
“He was scared.”
“Leo was crying.”
“He kept saying he wanted you.”
“And my father?”
“He stood there.”
“Did he tell Mark to take Leo?”
Elena hesitated.
David slammed his palm against the table.
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
David pushed back from the table.
Elena rushed on.
“But Dad didn’t mean forever.”
“That makes it better?”
“No.”
“Mark said Leo had seen Rachel.”
“He wanted to know exactly what Leo remembered.”
“Dad said we needed time.”
“I told them I would take him somewhere safe.”
David stared at her.
“You kidnapped my child because you needed time to hide a body.”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of the answer was monstrous.
“Where did you take him first?”
“The old hunting lodge.”
“On Dad’s property?”
“Yes.”
“That was Site A?”
“No.”
David froze.
“What?”
Elena looked directly at him.
“The lodge wasn’t Site A.”
“Then what was?”
“The red-door house.”
David leaned closer.
“Where is it?”
“Outside Cottonwood.”
“Mark owned it through a company.”
“Why did you move Leo?”
“Because Mark started visiting without warning.”
“He kept asking Leo about Rachel’s drive.”
“I didn’t know she had given him anything.”
“When Mark realized Leo might have hidden evidence, he became dangerous.”
“So you moved him under your floor.”
“Yes.”
“And told him we abandoned him.”
Elena’s face crumpled.
“I knew if he believed you were looking for him, he would scream every time somebody came near the house.”
“You were worried about neighbors?”
“I was worried Mark would find him.”
David leaned back.
“You keep saying you protected him.”
“I did.”
“You were one of the people he needed protection from.”
Elena had no answer.
David stood.
She quickly said, “There’s something you don’t know about Dad.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“He didn’t just cover up Rachel.”
“What else did he do?”
Elena looked toward the observation glass again.
Then lowered her voice.
“He paid Mark.”
“For what?”
“To create evidence that Leo was dead.”
David’s entire body went cold.
“What evidence?”
“A backpack.”
“Hair.”
“Blood.”
“Something investigators would eventually find far away.”
“Why?”
“So the searches would stop.”
David gripped the back of the chair.
“Did he do it?”
“I stopped Mark.”
“How?”
“I threatened to go to police.”
Elena laughed through her tears.
“Imagine that.”
“I was willing to confess to fraud and kidnapping if it kept Mark from staging my nephew’s death.”
David stared at her.
“When?”
“Seven months ago.”
“That’s when you moved Leo to Sedona?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you release him?”
Elena’s eyes met his.
And this time there was no convenient justification.
“Because by then I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t?”
“He knew what I did.”
“He hated me.”
“He wanted to go home.”
“And every day I waited made the consequences worse.”
“So I waited another day.”
“And another.”
“And another.”
David felt nothing but disgust.
Elena whispered, “There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“Mark kept a copy of everything.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“He called it his insurance policy.”
“Against Dad?”
“Against all of us.”
David moved toward the door.
Elena called after him.
“David.”
He turned.
“What?”
“If you find the red-door house, don’t go inside alone.”
“Why?”
“Because Mark didn’t use it only for Leo.”
David stared.
Elena’s face had become pale again.
“There were restraints in the back room.”
“And once, when I went there unexpectedly, I heard someone behind the wall.”
“Who?”
“I never found out.”
David waited.
May you like
Elena whispered.
“But it was a woman.”
