Chapter 5 - Blood by the River
The Range Rover sat under a highway overpass with the driver’s door open and rain blowing through the cabin.
Arthur arrived behind the police line twenty minutes later. Grant tried to keep him back, but Arthur saw enough.
Blood streaked the cream leather seat.
A woman’s scarf lay on the pavement.
Victoria’s scarf.
“Is she hurt?” Arthur asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Or is this staged?”
Grant gave him a look. “That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
A detective named Mara Kim joined them. She had sharp eyes and the patient expression of someone who did not trust quick answers.
“Mr. Vale,” she said, “who benefits if your wife disappears?”
Arthur almost laughed. “Are you asking if I did this?”
“I’m asking everyone everything.”
Back at the hospital, Elena sat beside Leo while he slept. Her phone vibrated with a blocked-number text.
YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT CLEANING.
A second message arrived with a photograph.
It showed Elena’s younger brother, Mateo, walking out of his auto repair shop that morning.
Elena stood so fast the chair scraped the floor.
A third message:
LEAVE THE VALES ALONE OR HE PAYS.
She called Mateo. No answer.
Again. No answer.
Her chest tightened.
Leo opened his eyes. “Elena?”
She forced a smile. “I’m right here.”
The hospital room door opened.
Arthur entered, soaked from the rain.
Elena showed him the messages.
His face hardened. “We call the police.”
“No.”
“Elena—”
“If they’re watching my brother—”
“They already threatened him. Keeping quiet won’t protect him.”
She looked at Leo, then back at Arthur. “You don’t understand what people do when they’re desperate.”
Arthur’s voice dropped. “I’m starting to.”
Detective Kim came in a minute later. Elena handed over the phone.
Kim studied the photograph. “This was taken less than two hours ago.”
“Can you find him?” Elena asked.
“We’ll send a unit.”
Kim’s own phone rang. She answered, listened, then turned toward Arthur.
“The blood in the Rover is Victoria’s.”
Arthur’s face changed.
Kim continued. “And we found a second blood type in the back seat.”
“Whose?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Leo sat upright in bed.
“I do,” he whispered.
May you like
Everyone looked at him.
“The man with the snake was bleeding.”
