Chapter 9 - WHAT ELENA KEPT
The police found the storage unit through a monthly charge on Elena’s bank statement.
David learned about it while helping Leo choose breakfast.
Pancakes frightened him.
That surprised David until Leo explained.
“If I don’t finish, do they take lunch away?”
“No,” David said.
“What if I can’t?”
“Then you stop.”
Leo studied the tray.
David cut one small piece and put the fork down.
“You decide.”
An hour later, Reyes met him and Sarah in the consultation room.
“We recovered belongings from a storage unit Elena rented.”
“What kind of belongings?” Sarah asked.
“Clothing. Mail. Several boxes connected to your family.”
She placed a photograph on the table.
Sarah recognized the wrapping paper first.
Little green dinosaurs.
Leo’s ninth birthday present.
She had wrapped it even though he wasn’t home.
Elena had offered to keep the package at her place because Sarah couldn’t bear seeing it in the closet.
In the photograph, it was still unopened.
Beside it sat birthday cards.
School pictures.
Copies of the missing-person flyer.
David felt Sarah’s hand pull away from his.
“What else?”
Reyes hesitated.
“A notebook.”
Elena’s handwriting filled the pages.
Dates. Meals. Short observations.
ASKED ABOUT SARAH AGAIN.
REFUSED TO CALL THIS HOME.
CRIED AFTER HEARING DAVID’S VOICE.
Sarah pushed her chair back so hard it struck the wall.
“His voice?”
Reyes nodded.
“We believe Elena made calls while Leo could hear her.”
David remembered every conversation.
His sister saying he needed rest.
His sister asking whether Sarah was coping.
His sister telling him that someday they would have to accept uncertainty.
Had Leo been three feet away?
Ten?
Had he tried to call out?
David stood and walked to the sink. He turned on the water because he needed a sound that wasn’t his own breathing.
Sarah didn’t cry.
Her face became frighteningly still.
“Did she keep our messages?”
“We’re examining her devices.”
“Good.”
Reyes looked up.
“I want every time I thanked her,” Sarah said. “Every time I told her she was helping us survive. I want them all.”
David turned off the water.
At the bottom of one photographed page, Elena had written a different sentence.
DAD SAYS WE CAN’T UNDO IT NOW.
The date was eleven months earlier.
Three months after the disappearance.
David looked at Reyes.
“He knew.”
“We have more than Leo’s memory now,” she said.
That evening, Leo finally ate half a pancake.
David celebrated with a smile he barely managed to hold.
May you like
Then his son asked the question no evidence could answer.
“Why didn’t she like me enough to let me go?”
