Chapter 3 - Seventeen Years Of SilenceI called Lauren at 7:12 the next morning.
She didn't answer.
At 7:14, she texted.
We need to talk.
I replied.
About Daniel?
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Finally:
Where did you hear that name?
I knew then.
She was hiding something.
I wrote:
You first.
She called immediately.
I put the phone on speaker.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“My office.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
She exhaled.
“Maya, I need you to listen to me carefully.”
I leaned back.
“I'm listening.”
“What happened yesterday cannot happen again.”
I almost laughed.
“You spilled wine on me.”
“That isn't what I mean.”
“What do you mean?”
Silence.
Then:
“Someone is watching me.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“Why?”
“I told you. I don't know.”
“Then why did you panic when Ethan mentioned my name?”
Her breathing changed.
“You aren't supposed to be involved.”
“That's interesting.”
“Maya...”
“Who is Daniel?”
She didn't answer.
“Lauren.”
“I haven't spoken to him in seventeen years.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“He's dangerous.”
“How?”
Another silence.
“Daniel knew things.”
“What things?”
“About people.”
“About you?”
“Yes.”
There it was.
A crack.
Small.
But real.
“What happened to him?”
“I told you. I haven't seen him since high school.”
“Then why are you afraid?”
“I am not afraid.”
“Lauren.”
“You don't understand.”
“Then explain it.”
She began crying.
It caught me off guard.
I'd never seen Lauren cry.
Not even when we were teenagers.
“I made one mistake,” she whispered.
“What mistake?”
“I trusted someone.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
I sat up.
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“What's he got to do with Daniel?”
“He was laundering money.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What?”
“My father's company was moving money through shell accounts. Daniel found out.”
“And you knew?”
“I found out later.”
“When?”
“Senior year.”
I stared at the wall.
“Why didn't you tell anyone?”
“Because my father threatened me.”
Her voice broke.
“He told me if I went to the police, he'd destroy my mother. He'd ruin our house. He'd make sure nobody ever hired me.”
I remembered Lauren from high school.
Confident.
Cruel.
Untouchable.
Suddenly, another picture formed behind that one.
A frightened girl pretending to be powerful because someone powerfuler had frightened her first.
But that did not erase what she had done to me.
“What does this have to do with my name?”
“I don't know.”
“Then who does?”
She whispered:
“Someone named Marcus Vale.”
I frowned.
“Who is that?”
“He worked for my father.”
“Does he still?”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“I don't know.”
A man's voice suddenly shouted in the background.
Lauren gasped.
Then the line went dead.
I immediately called back.
No answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
I grabbed my coat.
Ethan was in the kitchen when I came downstairs.
“You're leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“To find Lauren.”
He studied my face.
“What happened?”
I told him.
He was silent.
Then he picked up his keys.
“You're not going alone.”
We drove to Lauren's apartment.
Her building was expensive and heavily secured.
The doorman recognized her name.
But when we reached her floor, her apartment door was slightly open.
Ethan stepped in first.
“Lauren?”
No answer.
The apartment looked untouched.
Until I saw the kitchen.
A glass lay shattered on the floor.
A chair had been knocked over.
And on the wall, above the dining table, someone had written something in black marker.
Three words.
YOU TOOK EVERYTHING.
I stopped breathing.
“What does that mean?” Ethan asked.
I didn't answer.
Because I knew one thing Lauren didn't.
She hadn't taken everything.
Not from me.
Not from anyone.
We searched the apartment.
No Lauren.
Then Ethan found her phone behind the sofa.
The screen was cracked.
One final message was open.
Maya knows the truth.
My blood went cold.
I picked up the phone.
“Ethan.”
He looked at me.
“Someone thinks I know something.”
Before he could reply, the building alarm started screaming.
A security guard shouted from the hallway.
“There’s a fire!”
We ran toward the stairs.
Smoke was already filling the corridor.
Behind us, inside Lauren's apartment, something exploded.
And beneath the smoke alarm, I heard a sound that chilled me far more than the fire.
May you like
A woman screaming.
Lauren.
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