Chapter 2
Cassandro brought in Dr. Natalie Pierce the next morning.
She specialized in interviewing young children after traumatic events.
Cassandro stayed outside.
That was not easy for him.
He did it anyway.
Audrey spoke in fragments.
Mommy crying.
A phone.
Vivienne in Mommy’s room.
Uncle Damian carrying a black bag.
Mommy saying:
“Cassandro didn't write that.”
Then:
“Don't let him take Audrey.”
Natalie warned Cassandro immediately.
“These are a three-year-old’s memories of something that happened more than a year ago.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
He looked at her.
She continued.
“You cannot turn every fragment into a fact because it fits what you fear.”
Cassandro nodded.
That was precisely what he wanted to do.
Instead, he reopened Elena’s disappearance file.
The original message from Elena’s phone was still preserved.
I need distance. Don't follow me. Audrey is safer where she is for now.
Cassandro had hated that last sentence for fourteen months.
Safer where she is.
With him.
He had interpreted it as Elena choosing to leave their daughter.
Now he read it differently.
Why would Elena call Audrey safer with Cassandro if she was supposedly fleeing Cassandro?
The second message was stranger.
It came from Elena’s private email three days later.
I meant what I said. Stop searching.
Damian had been the person who recovered it.
At the time, Cassandro barely knew how to access Elena’s account.
Damian managed family security systems.
Cassandro called the private investigator who had originally worked the case.
“Who gave you Elena’s passwords?”
“Mr. Knox.”
“Why?”
“He said Mrs. Moretti had shared them for emergency backup.”
Cassandro stared at the wall.
“Did you ever confirm that?”
A pause.
“No.”
The investigator continued.
“There was another issue.”
“What?”
“Your wife had contacted a divorce attorney before she disappeared.”
Cassandro already knew Elena had been unhappy.
He had not known that.
“Why wasn't I told?”
“You were.”
Cassandro went still.
“I never heard that.”
The investigator checked his old notes.
“Damian said he informed you personally.”
Cassandro looked through the glass doors toward the guesthouse where Damian was being kept away from Audrey.
For fourteen months, Damian had stood between Cassandro and almost every piece of information about Elena.
May you like
Cassandro had called that trust.
Now he needed to know what it had cost him.
