Chapter 10 - The Woman in the Cabin
The lodge sat behind two miles of wet forest road.
Claire made me stay in the command vehicle.
I lasted six minutes.
Then gunshots cracked through the trees.
I was out the door before anyone could stop me.
“Vincent!” Claire shouted.
I ran toward the lodge.
A side window shattered.
A woman screamed.
Elena.
I knew that scream.
A deputy tackled a man near the porch. Another officer kicked open the side door.
I reached the hallway as Vanessa backed out of a bedroom holding a kitchen knife.
Her white party dress was stained with mud.
She looked less like a socialite now and more like someone whose lies had finally run out of room.
“Stay back,” she said.
I looked past her.
Elena sat on the floor, wrists bound, face pale, hair cut shorter than I remembered.
Alive.
My knees almost gave out.
“Elena.”
Her eyes found mine.
“Vincent?”
Vanessa pressed the knife toward her shoulder.
“One more step.”
I stopped.
Claire entered behind me with her weapon lowered but ready.
“Vanessa, put it down.”
Vanessa laughed.
“You think this ends with me?”
“No,” Elena said weakly. “It ends with the files.”
Vanessa’s face twisted.
I used the distraction.
I knocked the knife away and pulled Elena behind me as Claire took Vanessa to the floor.
Handcuffs clicked.
I dropped beside my wife.
For eighteen months I had imagined this moment so many times that reality felt impossible.
I touched her cheek.
“I thought you were dead.”
“I tried to get back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
She grabbed my shirt.
“Listen to me. Sofia?”
“Safe.”
Elena started crying.
Then she looked over my shoulder toward Vanessa.
“She didn’t start this.”
I thought of Anthony.
“I know.”
Elena shook her head.
“No. Anthony didn’t either.”
I stared at her.
May you like
“Then who did?”
Elena whispered, “Your father.”
