CHAPTER THREE
1125 Words
EVA'S POV
Oliver looked down at me and laughed — a short, surprised sound, like he had just heard a good joke.
"Wow. You're really hard to kill, huh?"
I could barely lift my head. My whole body felt like it had been wrung out and thrown away. But I looked between them — Oliver standing with his hands in his pockets, Jessica beside him with her arms crossed — and something cold settled in my chest.
"You're in this together," I said. "Both of you."
Jessica laughed. Not nervously. Fully. Like it was funny.
"Why?" My voice broke on the word. I hated that it did. "Why would you do this to me?" I coughed — hard, painful coughs that shook my whole body. "Why do you want me dead?"
Oliver glanced at Jessica like the answer was obvious.
Jessica sighed and crouched down so we were eye level. "For the money, Eva. Obviously."
I stared at her.
Oliver shrugged. "I've always loved Jessica. Since before you and I ever met. I only married you for the insurance policy."
The words landed slowly. One by one. Like rocks dropping into deep water.
"You — " I swallowed. "You faked everything. Our whole marriage. You faked all of it for a life insurance policy."
"You've got quite a large piggy bank under your name," Jessica said. Almost cheerfully. "If you die, we collect at least fifty million dollars. Give or take."
Oliver smiled. "Look on the bright side. Your death will actually mean something."
Something cracked open in me. Not grief — I was too far past grief. It was more like the last wall coming down.
"Please." I stretched my hand toward him. "How much do you need? Tell me and I'll get it. I'll work harder. I'll do whatever—"
"Work harder?" Jessica tilted her head. "Doing what exactly? Selling your body?" She stood back up. "Even trash has standards, Eva."
"Don't waste time," Oliver said flatly, already looking bored. "Just finish it."
"No — no, please—"
I tried to pull myself up. My arms wouldn't hold. I clawed at the dirt, at the grass, at anything.
Oliver reached down and picked up a spade that was leaning against a nearby rock. He looked at it for a second. Then he looked at me.
"No—!"
The last thing I felt was the impact.
Then nothing.
---
RAFAEL'S POV
The hospital room was too quiet.
I had been sitting beside my grandfather's bed for three days straight. The doctors had stopped giving timelines. They just looked at me with that particular expression — careful, apologetic — and I understood what it meant.
He was leaving.
He knew it too. But he refused to go without saying it one more time.
"Have you found her?" His voice was weak, but his eyes were sharp. They had always been sharp. Even now, even like this.
"We have some leads," I said. "Good ones. We're close."
He was quiet for a moment. His hands rested on the blanket, thin and still.
"She was just a little girl when she went missing." His voice dropped. "Six years old. She had her mother's eyes." He paused. "I should have found her sooner. I should have looked harder."
"You never stopped looking."
"It wasn't enough." He turned his head toward the window. "Her name was Hedda when she was born. Our Hedda. Whatever name she goes by now — wherever she ended up — she is still mine." He looked back at me. "If you find her, Rafael. Promise me."
I leaned forward. "I promise. I'll find her, and I will take care of her. You have my word."
He searched my face for a moment. Then the tension in his expression finally — finally — loosened. Like he had been holding something heavy for a very long time and could now, just barely, set it down.
He closed his eyes his breathing slowed.
His breathing had been changing for the past hour. Slower. Longer gaps between each inhale. I had been watching his chest rise and fall so carefully that my own breathing started to match his without me realising it.
"Grandfather." I leaned closer. "I'm still here."
Nothing. Just that slow, shallow rhythm.
I stood up and stepped to the door. "Doctor. Now, please."
The standby team was in the room within thirty seconds — two nurses and the attending physician, moving quickly but quietly around the bed. The doctor checked his pulse, lifted his eyelids, pressed a stethoscope to his chest. One of the nurses adjusted the monitor. Nobody spoke.
Sixty seconds passed.
The doctor straightened up. Removed the stethoscope. Looked at me.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Carlson. He's gone. Time of death — 11:47 p.m."
I heard the words. I understood them. But my body didn't move for a long moment, like it was waiting for a correction, for someone to say there had been a mistake.
No correction came.
One of the nurses touched my arm gently and guided me out of the room the corridor was bright and empty and smelled like antiseptic and I stood in it feeling completely hollow.
---
I don't remember the drive home clearly.
I remember getting into the car, the city lights. Then I was home, walking through the front door, and the house was quiet in that particular way that felt different from normal quiet — heavier, like it already knew.
I went straight to my room.... Just sat on the edge of the bed in the dark, elbows on my knees, staring at the floor.
A few more months. That was all I had wanted. A few more months for him to see this through — to see her found and the family whole again. He had carried the weight of searching for Hedda for twenty years. He deserved to see the end of it. Instead it all landed on me now — the company, the search, the promise I had made thirty minutes before he took his last breath.
I pressed my hands over my face.
A soft knock came at the door.
"Mr. Carlson." He matched my stride immediately, voice low and professional. "Mr. President."
"What is it?"
"We found her." He reached into his jacket and held out a folder. "We found Hedda."
I stopped walking.
He placed several photographs in my hand. A young woman. Millbrook City, Texas address listed in the file. Dark curls. Round face. A jewelry design business registered under the name Eva Henderson.
I stared at the photos for a long moment.
She was alive. Somewhere in Millbrook City, she was alive.
I closed the folder.
"Book me on the next flight to Texas."
- Writer
