Chapter 10 - THE FIRST LIE
Elena agreed to speak again with her attorney present.
This time, David wasn’t in the room.
He sat beside Sarah while Reyes later explained what investigators had learned.
“At the gathering, Elena told Leo you wanted him to help her carry something to the car.”
David stared at the table.
“She used my name.”
“Yes.”
Leo had trusted the instruction.
Of course he had.
He was eight, and the woman giving it had taught him to tie his shoes.
Elena drove to the cabin.
She told him his parents would meet them there.
When he cried, she said plans had changed.
When he asked to call home, she said his parents needed time.
“She thought you’d come to her,” Reyes said. “That you’d need her.”
Sarah’s face hardened.
“We did need her. She made sure of that.”
Elena had spent years turning family gatherings into quiet contests.
Who Richard praised.
Who he helped.
Whose house he visited.
David had called it insecurity.
He had never imagined his sister might use a child to settle the score.
“She says she planned to bring him back after a day,” Reyes continued.
“But she didn’t,” Sarah said.
“No.”
“Then that plan doesn’t matter.”
Reyes nodded.
Richard discovered Leo at the cabin several days after the disappearance.
By then, search teams were in the woods.
Television crews were at the estate.
Elena had begged him not to call police.
“He could have opened the door,” David said.
“Yes.”
“He could have picked Leo up.”
“Yes.”
Instead, Richard had decided to control the damage.
He told Elena to stay quiet while he worked out a story.
Then another day passed.
Then a week.
The longer he waited, the more admitting the truth would expose him too.
“He chose himself,” Sarah said.
No one corrected her.
Four months earlier, when the cabin needed repairs and a worker asked about the locked room, Richard paid for Elena’s move.
A fresh start.
A new house built into a hillside.
A storage space nobody would question.
David stared at the wall.
His father had not lost control of one terrible situation.
He had made a new decision every morning.
At home that night, in the temporary apartment arranged near the hospital, Maya climbed into David’s lap.
“Is Grandpa bad?”
David took a breath.
“He did something very bad. He hurt Leo.”
“Will you still listen to him?”
David held her close.
“No.”
May you like
She leaned against his chest.
“Good. Because he told me to stop talking about the gate.”
