Chapter 10 - THE LETTER UNDER THE FLOOR
Investigators returned to the greenhouse.
They searched the locked room again.
This time, they found a loose floorboard beneath the bed.
Inside was a sealed envelope.
Addressed to Dante.
The letter was written in Elena's handwriting.
Dante,
If you're reading this, I don't know where I am anymore.
Vincent thinks he can frighten me into silence.
He is wrong.
I found proof that he has been stealing money from the foundation and using the accounts to pay people who threaten families.
I don't know who I can trust.
But I trust Sophia.
I taught her the colors because children remember things adults overlook.
Purple is where it began.
Blue is where I hid the evidence.
Green is where they took me.
Yellow is where I saw the way out.
Red is the man who betrayed us.
Please don't blame yourself.
And please don't let our daughter grow up believing that silence is safer than truth.
I love you.
Elena.
Dante read the letter three times.
Then handed it to me.
His hands were shaking.
I finished reading.
My eyes filled.
“She was protecting Sophia.”
Dante nodded.
Then he looked at the last clue.
“Yellow is where I saw the way out.”
Investigators reviewed the greenhouse layout.
There was a service road behind the property.
A yellow security light stood beside an old maintenance gate.
Surveillance footage from a nearby traffic camera showed a vehicle leaving the area two nights earlier.
A white van.
Its license plate was partially visible.
The vehicle belonged to a private medical transport company.
Dante stared.
“Where did it go?”
Rafael checked the records.
“North.”
“How far?”
“Possibly Connecticut.”
Detective Bennett traced the company's recent routes.
One destination stood out.
A small private rehabilitation facility near the Hudson River.
The facility had received an unidentified female patient two nights earlier.
The paperwork listed her as Eleanor Ross.
Dante stared at the name.
“Elena.”
He looked at me.
For the first time, hope and terror appeared together in his eyes.
“Please,” he whispered.
May you like
I took his hand.
“We're going to find out.”
