Chapter 4 - The Woman in the Trunk
Police officers rushed to Dr. Hale’s residence before sunrise.
The house was empty.
Closets had been cleared.
Computer hard drives were missing.
His passport was gone.
Adrian stood outside the house with Detective Brooks.
“He knew we would come.”
“Someone warned him.”
Adrian looked toward the patrol car where Celeste sat handcuffed.
“She made one phone call to her attorney.”
Brooks nodded.
“We’re tracing it.”
Mia waited inside Adrian’s SUV with Noah.
She had refused to go to a shelter.
She trusted no one except Adrian.
A social worker sat in the front seat.
Mia kept watching the police through the window.
Adrian returned to the vehicle.
“Dr. Hale is gone.”
Mia looked at him.
“Is he the man who hurt Noah?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You do know.”
Adrian sat beside her.
Mia’s voice became quieter.
“Adults always say they don’t know when they’re afraid of the answer.”
Adrian looked down.
She was right.
His phone rang.
It was Rosa.
“Mr. Vale, you need to come home.”
“What happened?”
“I found something in Mrs. Vale’s dressing room.”
Thirty minutes later, Adrian entered his mansion with Detective Brooks.
Rosa led them upstairs.
Celeste’s dressing room smelled of expensive perfume.
Everything appeared perfectly arranged.
Rosa pulled open a hidden drawer beneath the jewelry cabinet.
Inside was a burner phone.
A bloodstained hospital identification card lay beside it.
The photograph on the card showed the young woman from the clinic video.
Her name was Evelyn Carter.
Adrian stared at the photograph.
A memory struck him.
He had met Evelyn nine months earlier at a redevelopment hearing.
She was a legal researcher representing tenants being forced from one of his company’s buildings.
She had challenged him publicly.
After the meeting, they had spoken for nearly three hours.
Weeks later, they began seeing each other in secret.
Adrian had ended the affair after Celeste claimed she was pregnant.
Celeste later said she had lost the baby.
Adrian had never heard from Evelyn again.
Until now.
Detective Brooks studied him.
“You knew her.”
Adrian nodded.
“I thought she left the city.”
“Did you try to contact her?”
“I did.”
“Her number was disconnected.”
“Her apartment was empty.”
“Celeste told me Evelyn had accepted money and moved to Europe.”
Brooks opened the burner phone.
Dozens of messages had been deleted.
The forensic team recovered several.
One was from Dr. Hale.
The mother woke up.
Another came three hours later.
She saw your face.
The final message made Adrian’s hands shake.
I moved her to the old Vale property.
Brooks looked at him.
“What old property?”
Adrian thought for a moment.
Then his face changed.
“My family owned a rehabilitation hospital outside the city.”
“It closed twelve years ago.”
“No one has been there since.”
Mia appeared in the doorway.
Adrian frowned.
“You were supposed to stay downstairs.”
“I heard you say Evelyn.”
Adrian knelt in front of her.
“Do you know that name?”
Mia reached into her backpack.
She pulled out a torn envelope.
The name Evelyn Carter was written across the front.
“I found this under the baby.”
Inside was a short letter.
The paper was stained with water.
Adrian unfolded it carefully.
If anyone finds my son, take him to Adrian Vale.
Tell Adrian that Celeste knows what happened to his brother.
Adrian read the final sentence twice.
Detective Brooks watched his face.
“What happened to your brother?”
Adrian could barely speak.
“My brother, Julian, died twelve years ago.”
“How?”
Adrian looked toward the window.
“He fell from the roof of the abandoned hospital.”
Mia tightened her grip on the backpack.
“What if he didn’t fall?”
Before Adrian could answer, every alarm in the mansion began screaming.
Smoke poured from Celeste’s dressing room.
Someone had set the hidden drawer on fire.
May you like
And Rosa was still inside.
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