Chapter 15 - ELENA PRICE

We reached Portland on a federal aircraft forty minutes after Daria.

Naomi’s team drove straight to Elena’s address.

Small house.

Blue shutters.

Rose bushes.

Front door open.

My heart stopped.

“Elena?”

No answer.

We entered.

A broken mug lay on the floor.

A chair overturned.

Then a voice came from the backyard.

“Don’t move.”

An elderly woman stood behind us holding a garden shovel like a weapon.

She had gray hair and my eyes.

My exact eyes.

I could not speak.

Naomi lowered her badge.

“Elena Price?”

“Yes.”

“Did Daria Kincaid come here?”

Elena’s face changed.

“She tried.”

“What happened?”

“I hit her bodyguard with the shovel.”

Catherine actually laughed.

For the first time in days, so did I.

Elena looked at me.

Long.

Carefully.

Then she whispered, “Thomas?”

My throat closed.

“No.”

I stepped closer.

“I’m Samuel.”

The shovel fell from her hands.

She covered her mouth.

“Oh, God.”

I had imagined anger.

Questions.

Accusations.

Instead, Elena walked toward me and touched my face with trembling fingers.

“My baby.”

Thirty-eight years collapsed into two words.

She cried.

I cried.

Catherine turned away to give us privacy.

Later, Elena told us what happened.

Thomas loved her before he married Daria.

When Elena became pregnant, Thomas planned to leave the marriage.

Daria found out.

After I was born, Daria arranged for Elena to be drugged and told her the baby had died.

Then Daria took me.

Thomas discovered the truth months later.

By then Daria threatened to kill both Elena and me if he exposed her.

Thomas secretly helped Elena escape.

He kept me close because he believed it was the only way to keep me alive.

Elena looked at me.

“He promised one day he would fix it.”

“He tried.”

I showed her his letter.

She cried again.

Then Naomi’s phone buzzed.

Daria’s vehicle had been found abandoned near the airport.

Her bodyguard was missing.

So was Daria.

Elena walked to an old cabinet and removed a yellow envelope.

“She came here for this.”

Inside was a photograph.

Thomas.

Elena.

And Daria in the background.

Holding a bottle.

On the back Thomas had written:

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IF I DIE, TEST THE CONTENTS OF THE BLUE DECANTER.

The blue decanter was still in Daria’s mansion.