Chapter 5 - The Man in the Dark
A flashlight beam cut through the darkness.
“Police!” Detective Ortiz shouted. “Stop!”
Footsteps reversed.
Fast.
A door slammed.
Audrey remained crouched beside the dining table while officers rushed through the hallway.
Victoria was crying.
Natalie clung to her mother.
Claire had hidden behind a chair.
Thirty seconds later, the backup generator activated.
Warm light returned.
The dining room looked exactly as it had before.
But nobody in it was the same.
Detective Reed approached Audrey.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
She stood.
“What happened?”
“Someone forced the service entrance.”
“Did you catch him?”
“No.”
Audrey looked toward the hallway.
“What did he want?”
Reed did not answer.
Instead, he walked to the silver tray.
The flash drive was gone.
Audrey stared.
“No.”
She searched the tray.
Photographs.
Statements.
Documents.
No drive.
“That contained the security footage.”
Reed nodded.
“Do you have copies?”
Audrey looked at him.
“Yes.”
For the first time that night, she smiled.
“Three.”
Claire gave a shaky laugh.
Even Reed almost smiled.
Dominic had spent years underestimating Audrey.
Apparently his associates did too.
The intruder had risked everything to steal a copy.
The original footage remained encrypted online.
Another copy was with Audrey’s attorney.
A third had been placed in a bank deposit box.
The stolen drive changed nothing.
Except now they knew someone was desperate.
At 1:15 a.m., Reed insisted Audrey leave the house.
She agreed.
Not because she was frightened of the building.
Because she finally understood that remaining predictable was dangerous.
Mrs. Alvarez went to stay with family.
Claire entered protective accommodation.
Victoria and Natalie were separately interviewed.
Audrey went to a hotel under another name.
She did not sleep.
At sunrise, she stood beside the window looking over the city.
Seven years of marriage.
And in less than twelve hours, nearly every memory had acquired a question mark.
Her phone rang.
Her attorney, Sarah Klein.
“I heard about the storage unit.”
Audrey closed her eyes.
“How bad?”
“Potentially very bad for Dominic.”
“And Richard Hale?”
“Police are looking for him.”
Audrey watched traffic moving far below.
“What about Rebecca?”
Silence.
“Audrey, don’t investigate that yourself.”
“I asked what you know.”
“Almost nothing.”
Sarah paused.
“Rebecca Sloan disappeared eight years ago. No body. No charges.”
“And Dominic?”
“He was questioned.”
Audrey turned from the window.
“What?”
“He was questioned?”
“Yes.”
“He never told me.”
“I know.”
Audrey sat down.
Another lie.
Perhaps the biggest.
Sarah continued.
“There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“The police recovered financial documents from the storage unit. Some appear connected to Rebecca.”
“How?”
“A trust.”
Audrey frowned.
“What trust?”
“Rebecca inherited money from her father.”
Audrey stopped moving.
“How much?”
“Enough to matter.”
The pattern became visible.
Rebecca.
Then Audrey.
Two women.
Two inheritances.
One man.
Audrey felt sick.
“Did Dominic marry her?”
“No. She disappeared before the wedding.”
Audrey remembered Victoria’s words.
This started before your wedding.
Perhaps she had meant more than Audrey understood.
Later that morning, Detective Reed arrived.
He carried a folder.
“We found Richard Hale’s car.”
“Where?”
“Airport parking garage.”
“He left?”
“We don’t know.”
“No flight under his name.”
Audrey looked at him.
“So he wants you to think he left.”
“Possibly.”
Reed placed the folder on the table.
“There’s something else.”
Inside was a photograph recovered from Dominic’s storage unit.
Rebecca Sloan.
Audrey stared at her.
She was brunette.
Warm smile.
Maybe thirty.
Standing beside Dominic at a charity event.
Audrey’s chest tightened.
The setting looked familiar.
Then she realized why.
It was the same annual charity auction where Audrey had later “accidentally” met Dominic.
Audrey looked up.
“He used the same place.”
Reed nodded.
“It appears so.”
She turned the photograph over.
Writing covered the back.
Not Dominic’s handwriting.
A date.
A number.
And two words.
Hale approved.
Audrey felt cold.
“Approved what?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
Her phone rang.
Unknown caller.
Reed gestured for her not to answer.
The call ended.
Voicemail arrived.
Reed connected the phone to recording equipment.
They played it.
A distorted male voice filled the room.
“Stop looking for Rebecca Sloan.”
Audrey and Reed exchanged a glance.
The voice continued.
“She made her choice. You can still make yours.”
Then silence.
Reed replayed it.
Audrey listened carefully.
Something in the background.
A bell.
Three notes.
Then traffic.
Audrey stood suddenly.
“I know that sound.”
Reed paused the recording.
“What?”
“The bell.”
“Where?”
Audrey grabbed her coat.
Reed stopped her.
“Tell me.”
“My grandfather’s old office building.”
The property had been empty for years.
A clock tower stood across the street.
Every hour, it rang those exact notes before the full chime.
Reed immediately called officers.
Audrey stared at the phone.
Whoever made the call had been near her grandfather’s building.
A building Dominic had repeatedly pressured her to sell.
A building Audrey had always refused to sell because it had been the first property her grandfather ever purchased.
Twenty minutes later, police entered it.
The ground floor was empty.
So were the offices.
But in the basement they discovered a recently used room.
A folding chair.
Food wrappers.
A laptop charger.
Printed photographs of Audrey.
And a wall map.
On the map were circles around every property she owned.
At the center was her house.
But one location was marked differently.
A red X.
Detective Reed sent Audrey a photograph.
She recognized the address.
It was an abandoned lakeside cabin that had belonged to Dominic’s family years earlier.
The same lake where Rebecca Sloan’s car had been found.
May you like
And beneath the red X someone had written:
SHE NEVER LEFT.
