Chapter 4
Daphne knew about Harbor House.
She had never known the name.
But she knew Elena had been talking to someone.
“About leaving me?” Alistair asked.
Daphne did not soften it.
“Possibly.”
They were standing inside Elena’s old sitting room.
Alistair had kept it closed most of the time since her death.
Daphne opened a cabinet beneath the bookcase.
“She was making plans.”
“What plans?”
“She didn’t tell me everything.”
“Tell me what she did.”
Daphne folded her arms.
“Elena was scared.”
“Of me?”
“Of your life.”
The distinction hurt only slightly less.
“She loved you,” Daphne continued. “That was part of the problem.”
Alistair looked at Elena’s photograph on the desk.
“She thought loving you kept making her accept things she didn’t want Sadie growing up around.”
“What did Harbor House do?”
“I don’t know. She called the woman she spoke to her case coordinator.”
“Name?”
“She never told me.”
Daphne thought.
“Maybe she didn’t know the full name.”
Alistair looked at her.
“Did Elena ever leave the estate before the night she died?”
“Twice.”
That was new.
“When?”
“Once for three hours. Once for most of an afternoon.”
“Where?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
Alistair’s voice hardened.
“And you let her take Sadie?”
“She didn’t take Sadie.”
He stopped.
“Elena left Sadie with you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She said she needed to understand her options before she made anything real.”
That sentence changed the shape of Elena’s disappearance.
Alistair had spent twenty-one months believing she drove away impulsively after their argument.
Maybe she had not.
Maybe those nine missing hours were part of something already underway.
Daphne opened another drawer.
Inside was an old blue folder.
Empty.
Alistair recognized it.
Elena carried it constantly during her final month.
“Where are the papers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Police?”
“No.”
“Family security?”
“No.”
Daphne looked uneasy.
“The folder was empty when her belongings came back.”
Alistair turned toward her.
“Did Corinne ever see this?”
Daphne’s expression changed.
“Why?”
“Answer.”
“About two months ago, she asked why we still kept ‘that blue file’ in Elena’s room.”
Alistair went still.
“Those exact words?”
“Yes.”
“Had you shown it to her?”
“No.”
“Had I?”
“No.”
May you like
Second clue.
Corinne knew about an object connected to Elena that she had no obvious reason to recognize.
