Chapter 7 - THE WITNESS WHO VANISHED
The next few days passed in a blur. Evelyn turned herself in. She gave a full confession—everything. The forged will. The affair with Arthur. The threats against Grace. Arthur’s long-standing plan to seize control of the estate. She laid every sin bare, accepting full responsibility, and named Arthur as the mastermind behind it all.
The police issued a warrant for Arthur’s arrest.
But he was gone.
He had vanished—no credit card usage, no phone calls, no withdrawal records. He had slipped out of the country before the police could even begin searching. The trail went cold at the airport. He had boarded a private plane and disappeared somewhere over the Atlantic.
I stood in the study one evening, staring out at the darkening sky, feeling as though I were waiting for a storm that would never truly arrive.
“He’s gone,” Sarah said from the doorway. She walked in, holding a folder of documents. “Interpol is searching. But Arthur has money. Connections. New identities. He could stay hidden for years.”
“Or he could be waiting,” I said. “Biding his time. Planning his next move.”
Sarah set the folder on the desk. She looked at me with concern.
“You haven’t slept properly in days, Adrian. You keep checking the locks. Watching the windows. Waiting for him to appear.”
“He is my father,” I said. The word tasted bitter. “And he wants to destroy everything I love.”
“Biology does not make a father,” Sarah said gently. “James raised you. James loved you. James was your father in every way that matters. Arthur is nothing but a ghost from the past.”
“A ghost who knows exactly where to find us,” I replied.
I walked to the desk and picked up the latest police report. Arthur had not traveled alone. There was a woman with him—young, dark-haired, appearing in surveillance footage but never clearly identifiable. She seemed to be his assistant, his companion, his shadow.
“Who is she?” I mused.
Sarah leaned over. “No one knows. She appears only once before this… in a photograph taken at the estate six months ago. Standing near Arthur. Watching the house. No one recognized her.”
I frowned. “She was here?”
“Apparently,” Sarah said. “Arthur has been planning this for a very long time, Adrian. He has people. Resources. Allies we don’t even know about.”
I set the report down. “Then we need to find them. Before they find us.”
The next morning, I received a phone call that changed everything.
It was from a hospital in a city three hours away. A woman had been admitted the night before—found wandering along a highway, disoriented, suffering from exposure. She had a single photograph in her pocket. Of me. As a child. With Arthur.
My heart raced as I drove to the hospital. Who was she? Why did she have my photograph? And why had she been with Arthur?
I walked into the ward and found her sitting on the edge of a bed, wrapped in a blanket, staring out the window. She looked young—hardly more than thirty. Thin. Dark circles under her eyes. But when she turned to look at me… my breath caught.
She had my eyes.
The same shape. The same color. The exact same way of looking at the world.
She stood up slowly, trembling.
“Adrian?” she whispered.
“Who are you?” I asked.
May you like
She took a breath, as if gathering every ounce of courage she possessed.
“I am Elena,” she said. “Arthur is my father too.”
