Chapter 14 - The Missing Eight Hours
The medical examiner’s report gave Sofia’s time of death as 11:43 p.m.
The crash occurred at 9:06.
Two hours and thirty-seven minutes.
Matteo had never noticed.
Or perhaps he had never been allowed to notice.
Nolan told him Sofia’s body remained inside the wreck while emergency crews secured the road.
Matteo had been too devastated to question the gap.
Now Helen did.
“No ambulance log.”
She said.
“No hospital intake.”
“No official body transfer until after midnight.”
Liana stared at the timeline.
“They had her for almost three hours.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Longer.”
He pointed.
“The morgue intake shows 2:51 a.m.”
Nearly six hours.
Naomi looked sick.
“Bellmore had a surgical suite.”
Matteo’s face went white.
“No.”
Nobody spoke.
He looked at Naomi.
“No.”
She held his gaze.
“We have to consider it.”
“You think they experimented on Sofia.”
“I think we follow evidence.”
His chair scraped backward.
“She was not a subject.”
Naomi’s voice softened.
“Neither was Ava.”
That stopped him.
Helen traced Nolan’s phone records.
One tower ping near the crash.
Then a second.
Bellmore.
At 10:14 p.m.
Matteo left the room.
Liana found him outside the hospital chapel.
He stood with both hands against the wall.
“I should have been there.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
“That isn’t how knowing works.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You sound like me now.”
“When?”
“When you blamed yourself for Ava.”
Liana looked at him.
“I still do sometimes.”
Matteo turned.
“So do I.”
“For Sofia?”
“For everything.”
He sat.
Liana remained standing.
“My father made me believe protection meant controlling every variable.”
He said.
“Where she went.”
“Who drove her.”
“Who guarded the house.”
“I put security around Sofia until she could barely breathe.”
His mouth twisted.
“And the whole time, the people I trusted were inside the circle.”
Liana sat beside him.
“You can’t protect someone from something you refuse to see.”
Matteo looked at her.
“That sounds like an accusation.”
“It is.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
Helen found Nolan six hours later.
Not alive.
His car sat beside a rural lake.
One gunshot wound.
The weapon beside him.
It looked like suicide.
Helen didn’t believe it.
Neither did Matteo.
But Nolan had left something behind.
A scheduled email sent to Helen ten minutes after his death.
One sentence.
I DID WHAT THEY TOLD ME BECAUSE THEY HAD MY SON.
Attached were coordinates.
The location led to an abandoned veterinary research facility once owned by Calder Biotech.
Inside they found records.
And a room with Sofia’s name.
Matteo stood outside the door for a long time.
Liana touched his arm.
“You don’t have to go in first.”
“Yes.”
He opened it.
The room contained one hospital bed.
Restraints.
An IV pole.
A camera.
Nothing else.
On the wall, someone had scratched marks into the paint.
Six groups.
Five lines in each.
Thirty days.
Matteo touched them.
“She was here.”
Helen examined a cabinet.
“Blood samples.”
Naomi found medication logs.
“Sofia Varric.”
“Admitted 9:58 p.m.”
Matteo stared.
“What date?”
“The crash.”
“Discharged?”
Naomi went silent.
“What?”
She looked at him.
“Thirty-one days later.”
Nobody moved.
Matteo whispered.
“That’s impossible.”
Liana looked at the wall marks again.
Thirty days.
Sofia had survived an entire month after everyone thought she was dead.
“What happened after discharge?”
Helen searched.
“No destination.”
Gabriel found a video archive.
Most files corrupted.
One survived.
Day twenty-eight.
Sofia sat on the hospital bed.
Thin.
Bruised.
Alive.
Matteo gripped the table.
On the screen, Sofia looked toward someone outside frame.
“I won’t tell you where the copies are.”
A man’s voice replied.
Calder.
“You misunderstand your position.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“You have a son.”
Sofia’s face changed.
“If you touch him—”
“We already have.”
Her eyes filled with terror.
Calder continued.
“Cooperate.”
Sofia looked toward the camera.
Then something remarkable happened.
She smiled.
“You made one mistake.”
“What?”
“You let me marry Matteo.”
Calder laughed.
“That was Vittorio’s mistake.”
“No.”
Sofia said.
“You think Matteo’s greatest weakness is anger.”
“It is.”
“No.”
She leaned forward.
“It’s love.”
Matteo closed his eyes.
Sofia continued.
“He takes too long to understand it.”
She whispered.
“But once he does…”
A small smile.
“…you should run.”
The video ended.
Liana looked at Matteo.
He did not speak.
Helen found another record.
A transport order signed on day thirty-one.
Destination:
St. Agnes Hospice.
They drove there.
The hospice had closed four months earlier.
Records had been transferred.
Helen obtained access.
Sofia Varric was not listed.
But a Jane Doe had been admitted the same day.
Age thirty-one.
Dark hair.
Severe neurological damage.
No family contacts.
She died forty-eight hours later.
Matteo stared at the record.
“Where was she buried?”
The administrator searched.
“County cemetery.”
Matteo went pale.
Liana understood.
The woman buried in the Varric family mausoleum may never have been Sofia.
A closed coffin.
Burn injuries.
Identification through dental records supplied by Nolan.
Everything could have been falsified.
They reached the county cemetery before sunset.
The Jane Doe grave was marked only with a number.
7841.
Matteo stood in front of it.
No name.
No flowers.
No one had visited.
He knelt.
For eight months he had brought flowers to an empty or falsely identified coffin.
His wife had spent her last month imprisoned.
Then she died anonymously.
Liana stood several steps away.
This grief belonged to him.
After a long time, Matteo touched the dirt.
“I’m sorry.”
He whispered.
Liana looked at the small grave beside the old fence.
Sofia had tried to save Ava.
Now Ava had helped lead them back to Sofia.
Two mothers.
Two graves.
One buried case.
But there was still one question.
Helen voiced it.
“Why keep Sofia alive for thirty-one days?”
Naomi looked at the medication logs.
“They wanted something from her.”
“The evidence?”
Gabriel asked.
“Maybe.”
Naomi frowned.
“Or something else.”
She pointed to repeated blood draws.
“They were testing her.”
Liana felt cold.
“For Velorin?”
“No.”
Naomi looked disturbed.
“Something newer.”
Matteo stood.
“What?”
Naomi held up the file.
“Project N.”
Liana looked at her.
“What does N stand for?”
Naomi’s eyes moved toward Matteo.
“I think it stands for Nico.”
And suddenly the case shifted again.
Sofia’s imprisonment had not only been punishment.
It had been preparation.
May you like
For something they still intended to do to her son.
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