Chapter 6
The old police file did not suggest murder.
That mattered.
Alistair forced himself to keep remembering it.
Elena’s car left a wet rural road shortly after three in the morning.
No evidence showed another vehicle made contact.
No sign of tampering had been identified.
Her toxicology report was clean.
The medical examiner concluded she died from injuries sustained in the crash.
The storm had been severe.
The road was poorly lit.
Everything supported an accident.
The unanswered question remained the nine hours before it.
Elena’s phone went dark shortly after leaving the estate.
Her last confirmed location came from a toll camera forty minutes north of Chicago.
Then nothing until the crash.
Alistair had once ordered his own security team to find those missing hours.
They failed.
Now Rebecca used a different route.
Harbor House billing.
An archived invoice showed Elena had scheduled an after-hours appointment on the night she died.
Location:
A private conference suite in Evanston used for clients who could not safely visit the office during business hours.
Appointment time:
9:00 p.m.
Coordinator:
HW-1847.
Corinne.
Alistair stared at the invoice.
Rebecca said, “This is getting stronger.”
“Did she attend?”
“We need the building logs.”
The conference suite had changed ownership.
Most records were gone.
One old property-management company retained archived electronic access data for insurance reasons.
Rebecca requested it.
While they waited, another problem emerged at the estate.
Sadie refused to enter the ballroom.
Daphne had tried walking past it with her during physical therapy exercises.
The child stopped her wheelchair beside the doorway and began crying.
“No water.”
Daphne immediately backed away.
Alistair watched from the hall.
He felt helpless in a way guns and money had never prepared him for.
The child psychologist he hired that afternoon explained the obvious carefully.
Sadie now associated that room with humiliation and threat.
“We don’t force her back in to prove she’s safe.”
Alistair nodded.
“What do we do?”
“Give her control in small things.”
So the ballroom stayed closed.
No galas.
No staff events.
No meetings.
If Sadie wanted the door shut, it stayed shut.
That night Alistair walked past it alone.
May you like
Corinne had spent months insisting Sadie needed to become more adaptable.
Now he wondered how often adults used words like adaptability when what they really wanted was obedience.
