Chapter 3: Fourteen Months Stolen
The steel door opened three inches, and a broad man’s face appeared in the gap.
I recognized Grant Mercer, Chloe’s brother—the contractor who had renovated our pool after Elena vanished.
“You weren’t supposed to find this room,” Grant said.
I drove my shoulder into the door.
Grant stumbled backward, and I forced my way into a low concrete corridor.
“Elena!” I shouted.
“Marcus, behind you!”
Grant grabbed my jacket, but I twisted free and shoved him against the wall.
A ring of keys slipped from his hand and skidded toward a second door.
“You have no idea what your wife did,” he said.
“Ask her what she was planning.”
“You kept her down here.”
“She could have left months ago if she’d signed the papers.”
A chain ran from the wall to a cuff around Elena’s ankle.
She was thinner, her dark hair uneven, but her eyes were unmistakably hers.
“Don’t listen to him,” she said.
“Get Lily first.”
I seized the keys and dropped beside her.
“What papers?”
“The family trust,” Elena said.
“My signature controls Lily’s inheritance until she turns twenty-five.”
Grant pushed himself upright.
“Chloe only wanted what your wife stole from her.”
“Elena didn’t steal anything from Chloe.”
“You never asked where the money for this house came from, did you?”
The cuff opened.
Elena tried to stand, but her knees folded beneath her.
I caught her before she struck the floor.
“I’ve got you,” I said.
“You said that on the boat too,” she whispered.
The words cut deeper than Grant’s hands ever could.
A motor groaned somewhere beyond the corridor.
Water began pouring through a drain near the steel door.
“What did Chloe do?” I demanded.
Grant glanced at the rising water.
“She opened the pool valve.”
“You’ll drown too.”
“Not if you give me those keys.”
Elena clutched my sleeve.
“There’s another exit.
He used it to bring food.”
Grant lunged.
I threw the keys down the corridor, and his eyes followed them for one fatal second.
Elena pointed toward a narrow maintenance hatch.
“Marcus, now!”
I lifted her through it, then climbed after her.
Grant’s fingers closed around my ankle.
“You leave me here, Chloe takes the girl!”
I kicked free and pulled the hatch shut.
“Marcus,” Elena gasped, crawling through the passage, “he said Lily is in danger.”
We emerged behind the pool equipment shed.
Elena collapsed into the sunlight, shielding her eyes with both hands.
“Mommy!”
Lily ran across the lawn and threw herself against Elena.
Elena made a sound I had never heard from another human being—half sob, half prayer.
“My baby,” she cried.
“Let me look at you.”
Lily held Elena’s face between her small hands.
“I knew you weren’t gone.
Chloe said I dreamed you.”
“You didn’t dream me,” Elena said.
“You found me.”
I turned toward the patio.
Chloe was gone.
My suit jacket lay beside the pool.
The engagement ring box had been crushed beneath someone’s shoe, and the side gate swung open.
“Daddy?” Lily said.
I faced her.
“Where did Chloe go?”
“She went inside to get my red backpack.”
Elena’s arms tightened around Lily.
“What’s in the backpack?” she asked.
Lily looked toward the empty driveway.
“My passport.”
May you like
A car door slammed beyond the hedge.
Before I could reach the gate, an engine roared away—and when I turned back, Lily was no longer in Elena’s arms.
