Chapter 34: The Husband's Dream

Julian’s tires had left black skids on the driveway, rubber scars pointing toward the city. Toward Vane. Toward an answer he might not survive.

Elena gripped the steering wheel of the Volvo, her knuckles white. She couldn't follow him in this car. Vane knew its GPS. He knew its speed. He probably knew the tire pressure.

She needed something analog.

She ran to the garage. Not the main one where the luxury sedans slept under dust covers. The old tractor shed at the back of the property.

Inside, under a tarp heavy with bird droppings, was Jeremiah Barnes’ old truck. A 1978 Ford. No computer. No GPS. Just rust and stubbornness.

She found the key under the visor. The engine coughed, sputtered, then roared to life with a cloud of black smoke.

She backed out, crushing a hydrangea bush. She didn't care.

She drove fast, taking the back roads through the woods. The truck rattled, the suspension groaning with every pothole. She wasn't just chasing her husband. She was chasing a memory.

*The smell of turpentine.*

Julian had mentioned it after his dream. A woman with red hair and the smell of turpentine.

Valerie was an artist. Artists used turpentine.

If Vane had fathered a child with Valerie, where did he keep them? Not at the manor. Constance wouldn't have allowed it. Not in the city. Too many eyes.

He kept them close. But hidden.

Elena thought about the map of the estate. The vast tracts of forest that Vane managed. And the old hunting lodge on the north ridge. The one Beatrice had mentioned.

But Julian wasn't going to the lodge. He was going to Vane’s office in town.

Unless he remembered something else.

Elena’s phone was still dead, the jammer's legacy lingering like radiation. She turned onto the main highway. She needed to intercept him before he reached Vane.

But then she saw it.

Parked on the shoulder, a mile from the town limit.

Julian’s Audi.

The driver’s door was open. The hazards were flashing, orange pulses in the gray dawn.

Elena slammed on the brakes. The truck skidded to a halt.

She jumped out. "Julian!"

The car was empty. The keys were in the ignition. His phone was on the passenger seat.

He hadn't stopped for gas. He hadn't broken down.

He had been stopped.

Elena looked at the road. There were no skid marks. No signs of a struggle. Just the car, abandoned like a shell.

She looked into the woods. The trees were dense here, a wall of pine and shadow.

She saw something caught on a branch a few yards in.

A piece of fabric. Blue linen.

She ran toward it. It was a strip torn from Julian’s shirt.

He had left a trail.

She pushed into the woods. The ground was soft, covered in pine needles. She saw footprints. Not one set. Two.

Someone had walked him into the forest. At gunpoint? Or with a lie?

She followed the tracks. They led away from the town, away from the road, and deeper into the Hawthorne land.

Toward the ridge.

Toward the hunting lodge.

Elena stopped. A memory surfaced. Not hers. Julian's.

*I remember a smell,* he had told her once. *Like pine and old smoke.*

He wasn't remembering a dream. He was remembering his first home.

Vane hadn't taken him to the office. He had taken him back to where he started. To the place where he was stored until he was needed.

Elena started to run. The air was thin, burning her lungs.

She crested the hill. The lodge sat in a clearing, dark and brooding. It looked abandoned.

But there was smoke coming from the chimney.

And parked in front, next to Vane’s black sedan, was a third car.

A station wagon with Oregon plates.

Valerie’s car.

The mother, the father, and the son.

The reunion wasn't about to happen. It was already happening.

And Elena wasn't invited.

She crept toward the lodge, staying low in the brush. She reached the window. It was high, but there was a woodpile beneath it.

She climbed up. She peered through the dirty glass.

Inside, a fire roared in the hearth. Vane sat in a leather armchair, a gun on his knee. Valerie stood by the window, looking out, her face a mask of grief.

And in the center of the room, tied to a wooden chair, was Julian.

He wasn't fighting. He wasn't screaming.

He was staring at Vane with an expression Elena had never seen before.

It wasn't fear.

It was recognition.