Chapter 8
1682 Words
The city disappeared behind them slowly.
At first, there were still buildings on either side of the road, crowded shops, buses stopping without warning, and people moving along the sidewalks beneath umbrellas. Then the buildings became fewer. The traffic thinned. Eventually, even the streetlights disappeared.
Isadora watched the scenery change through the passenger window.
She had been quiet for most of the journey.
Lucien hadn't complained.
He rarely complained about anything.
He simply drove, occasionally checking the road signs and the directions on his phone.
After almost half an hour, Isadora finally spoke.
“You've been here before.”
Lucien kept his eyes on the road.
“Not here.”
“You knew exactly where to turn.”
“I've been in this area.”
“That isn't the same thing.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“Then why are we really here?”
He was silent for several seconds.
“Because someone remembered seeing your father's car.”
Isadora's heart tightened.
“Who?”
“A former employee of one of the companies your father did business with.”
“Why didn't they report it?”
“They didn't know it was his car at the time.”
“And now?”
“After seeing an old photograph, they recognized it.”
Isadora frowned.
“That sounds like a weak lead.”
“It is.”
She looked at him in surprise.
Lucien continued driving.
“I don't want you believing we have more answers than we actually do.”
That was perhaps the most reassuring thing he'd said all day.
For once, he wasn't pretending to know everything.
They turned onto a narrow road covered with loose gravel.
Branches scraped lightly against the side of the car.
A few minutes later, Lucien slowed near a rusted gate.
Beyond it was an abandoned storage yard.
There were no people.
No working buildings.
Just an old metal shelter, weeds, broken concrete, and several rusting pieces of equipment pushed against the far wall.
Lucien stopped the car.
Isadora stared through the windshield.
“That's where it is?”
“Apparently.”
“Apparently?”
He looked at her.
“We're here to find out whether the information was correct.”
He got out.
Isadora followed.
The air was cooler than she expected.
She wrapped her arms around herself as they walked toward the back of the property.
Lucien moved carefully, looking around before approaching the shelter.
Then he stopped.
Isadora followed his gaze.
The car was barely visible beneath the collapsed metal roof.
It was covered in dust.
Leaves had collected along the windshield.
One of the tires was flat.
The paint had faded slightly from years of exposure.
Isadora stopped walking.
She knew that car.
She had sat in the back seat as a child.
She remembered the smell of the leather.
The wooden trim on the doors.
The small scratch near the passenger-side handle that her father had always promised to fix.
Her throat tightened.
“That's it.”
Lucien looked at her.
“You're certain?”
She nodded.
“The scratch.”
She walked closer.
Her fingers hovered over the damaged section near the handle but didn't touch it.
“My father made that himself.”
“How?”
“He was carrying a box. He dropped it against the door.”
A small, unexpected smile touched her face.
“He blamed the box.”
Lucien watched her quietly.
Then the smile disappeared.
Because the memory had reminded her of everything she had lost.
Her father.
Her home.
Her family.
The life she had believed would always be there.
Lucien stepped toward the vehicle.
“Don't touch anything yet.”
She looked at him.
“Why?”
“We don't know who has been here.”
He crouched near the driver's side.
There were faint marks in the dirt.
Not fresh enough to be recent, but not old enough to belong to years ago.
Someone had walked around the vehicle.
Lucien examined the driver's door.
“There.”
Isadora moved closer.
A small section of the handle was clean.
The surrounding metal was covered with dust.
“Someone opened it,” she said.
“Recently.”
“How recently?”
“I can't tell.”
“Could it have been the person who found the car?”
“Possibly.”
“Then we're not necessarily being followed.”
“No.”
She released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
Lucien opened the door carefully.
The smell of old leather and dust escaped from the car.
Nothing looked disturbed.
There were no dramatic clues waiting for them.
No mysterious envelope.
No hidden message written across the dashboard.
Just the remains of a vehicle that had been abandoned for years.
Isadora looked inside.
An old parking ticket lay beneath the passenger seat.
There was a pair of sunglasses in the center compartment.
A receipt had faded almost completely.
She recognized the handwriting on the back of the receipt.
Her father's.
Her fingers trembled.
“That's his.”
Lucien looked at it.
“What does it say?”
“Nothing important.”
She turned it over.
A grocery list.
Bread.
Coffee.
Milk.
Something about the ordinary list made her chest ache more than any secret message could have.
Her father had written it shortly before he disappeared.
He had been planning to come home.
He had expected there to be a tomorrow.
Lucien noticed her expression.
“We can leave if you need to.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
She looked deeper into the car.
“I want to know what happened.”
Lucien nodded.
He checked beneath the driver's seat.
His hand stopped.
“There.”
He pulled out a small black notebook.
Isadora recognized it immediately.
“My father carried that everywhere.”
“You're sure?”
“He used it for work.”
Lucien handed it to her.
She opened it.
Several pages were damaged by moisture.
Others had faded with age.
Most contained ordinary notes—appointments, telephone numbers, reminders, names of businesses.
Then she reached a page near the middle.
One name stopped her.
Grave.
She looked at Lucien.
His expression changed.
“What?”
She turned the notebook toward him.
He stared at the page.
Beside his surname was a date.
The date her father disappeared.
Isadora's pulse quickened.
“You knew him that night.”
Lucien didn't answer immediately.
“I knew your father before that night.”
“That's not what I asked.”
“I know.”
She pointed at the page.
“Why is your name here?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
She closed the notebook.
“You've known more about my father than you've told me.”
“Yes.”
“At least you're finally admitting it.”
Lucien looked at her.
“I didn't know how to explain it without making things worse.”
“Try.”
He took a slow breath.
“Your father came to see me that night.”
Isadora stared at him.
“What did he want?”
“I don't remember everything.”
“Lucien.”
“I remember that he was worried.”
“About what?”
“He believed someone was watching him.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“You keep saying you don't know.”
“Because I won't invent an answer just to make you feel better.”
She looked away.
That answer irritated her.
But she knew he was right.
She opened the notebook again.
Several pages had been torn out.
“Someone removed these.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who?”
“No.”
She studied the remaining page.
At the bottom, almost hidden beneath a water stain, was a sentence.
Only part of it remained.
If anything happens, trust—
The rest was gone.
Isadora stared.
“Trust who?”
Lucien leaned closer.
“I don't know.”
She looked at him.
“Could it have been you?”
His eyes met hers.
“I don't know.”
For once, there was no certainty in his voice.
Only honesty.
Before she could respond, a faint engine sounded beyond the gate.
Lucien immediately straightened.
A dark vehicle passed slowly along the road.
It didn't stop.
It didn't turn toward them.
It simply continued down the road until it disappeared behind the trees.
Isadora watched it.
“Do you know that car?”
“No.”
“Could they have seen us?”
“Possibly.”
Lucien closed the car door.
“We're leaving.”
“Why?”
“Because we've found what we came for.”
She looked at the notebook.
“We barely found anything.”
“We found enough to know this wasn't random.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your father came here for a reason.”
“And you think the reason is in this notebook?”
“I think someone didn't want us to read the missing pages.”
They returned to the car.
Isadora sat silently, still holding the notebook.
Lucien started the engine.
As they drove away, she opened the notebook once more.
She turned to the page with his name.
Something bothered her.
She tilted the notebook toward the fading sunlight.
There was writing beneath the water stain.
She hadn't noticed it before.
Three faint words.
He trusted him.
Her heart began beating faster.
She looked at Lucien.
He was watching the road.
She looked back at the words.
Who was him?
Lucien?
Someone else?
She closed the notebook.
She didn't tell him what she'd found.
Not yet.
Because she had begun to understand something.
The truth about her father's disappearance wasn't hidden in one secret.
It was scattered among people, places, and memories.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it was Lucien Grave.
The man she was beginning to trust.
The man her father had apparently trusted first.
And Isadora wasn't sure which possibility frightened her more.
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