Chapter 4 - The Locked House
The key opened a house in Marblehead.
Victor recognized it immediately from the address engraved faintly along the brass.
Elena's family had owned the seaside cottage before their marriage.
Victor had believed it sold eleven years earlier.
Records said otherwise.
A shell company had purchased it.
That company belonged to Nikolai.
Victor drove there himself.
Aliyah sat beside him despite his objections.
“You're staying in the car.”
“No.”
“Aliyah.”
“If Elena might be alive, you're not walking into that house alone.”
“That's exactly what I'm doing.”
“Then enjoy arguing with me until sunrise.”
He looked at her.
She smiled.
Victor muttered something in Russian.
“I assume that was affectionate.”
“It was not.”
The cottage stood above the Atlantic, windows dark against the storm.
Inside, everything smelled of dust and salt.
Victor found the light switch.
Aliyah saw his face.
The living room was filled with photographs.
Victor.
Hundreds of them.
Victor leaving restaurants.
Victor entering offices.
Victor at Elena's grave.
Victor sitting alone at the Red Lion.
Twelve years of his life documented from a distance.
Then Aliyah noticed another wall.
Newer photographs.
Hers.
Campus.
Bookstore.
Apartment.
Pub.
“Oh my God.”
Victor stepped in front of her instinctively.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Victor pulled a gun.
“Stay behind me.”
They climbed.
At the end of the hallway was a locked bedroom.
The brass key fit.
Victor opened it.
A woman sat beside the window.
For one impossible second, nobody breathed.
She was older than the woman in the photographs. Silver threaded her dark hair. A scar crossed her left temple.
But Victor knew her.
The gun fell from his hand.
“Elena?”
The woman began crying.
Victor could not move.
She stood.
“Victor.”
Twelve years collapsed into one word.
Aliyah backed away.
Victor looked as if his body had forgotten how to breathe.
Elena approached.
She reached for him.
Victor flinched.
Her hand stopped.
Pain crossed her face.
“I knew you'd hate me.”
Victor finally found his voice.
“You're alive.”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury you.”
“I had no choice.”
“Twelve years.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
Victor laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“By destroying me?”
Elena covered her mouth.
Then another voice came from the doorway.
“She did what I told her.”
Nikolai.
Victor spun.
His fury was immediate.
“You.”
Nikolai raised both hands.
“Elena discovered Sergei wasn't stealing from you. He was laundering money for people far above him. Judges. Police commanders. politicians. She copied everything.”
“Why fake her death?”
“Because they ordered both of you killed.”
Elena spoke.
“The crash was real.”
Victor looked at her.
“I survived because Nikolai had followed me. He pulled me out before the car burned.”
“And you didn't come home?”
“I was pregnant.”
Victor stopped.
Aliyah felt the room change.
Elena closed her eyes.
“I found out two days before the crash.”
Victor's face emptied.
“Where is my child?”
Elena began to cry harder.
“I lost her.”
Victor turned away as if struck.
Aliyah's heart broke for both of them.
Then headlights swept across the windows.
Nikolai cursed.
“We need to move.”
Gunfire exploded downstairs.
Victor grabbed Aliyah and pulled her behind the wall.
Windows shattered.
Nikolai fired down the staircase.
Elena screamed.
Victor shoved Aliyah toward a rear room.
“Take Elena!”
“What about you?”
“Go!”
Aliyah grabbed Elena's hand.
They ran toward the back stairs.
Halfway down, Elena stumbled.
Aliyah caught her.
A man appeared below them.
Gun raised.
Before he could fire, Victor shot him from above.
“MOVE!”
They reached the kitchen and escaped through the rear door.
The Atlantic wind hit like ice.
Nikolai's SUV waited behind the cottage.
They climbed inside.
Victor came last.
As Nikolai accelerated away, the cottage erupted in flames.
Aliyah watched Victor.
He wasn't watching the burning house.
He was watching Elena.
Twelve years of grief sat between them.
Then Elena whispered something.
“There is one thing I lied about.”
Victor slowly turned.
Elena looked at Aliyah.
“I didn't lose our daughter.”
Silence.
Victor's voice was barely audible.
“Where is she?”
May you like
Elena answered.
“I don't know anymore.”
