Searching the Attic

Sarah’s face faded into the black glass of the tablet. Elena sat in the suffocating silence of the nursery, the weight of the past pressing down like the snow outside. She wasn’t just a wife in a bad marriage; she was a target in a high-stakes liquidation.

She needed to move. If the driveway was a murder weapon, she needed a shield. Or better yet, a way to scream for help that Marcus couldn't silence with a staple gun and plastic sheeting.

Elena waited until she heard the low, rhythmic thrum of an action movie vibrating from the living room downstairs. Marcus and Val were "celebrating" their survival, bonding over cinematic violence while the real thing sharpened its teeth in the guest wing.

She slipped out of the nursing chair, her feet silent in thick wool socks. She didn't head for the stairs. She headed for the pull-down ladder in the hallway ceiling.

The attic was a drafty cavern of forgotten things. The air smelled of old insulation and the bitter cold seeping through the eaves. She remembered Marcus hauling boxes up here the week they moved in—boxes he’d insisted were just boring tax records from his days in London.

She navigated the maze of trunks and plastic bins with her phone’s flashlight, the beam cutting through the dark like a blade. She found the stack in the far corner, beneath a heavy tarp.

*Vance Capital - Archive 2015.*
*Investment Logs - Private.*
*Tax Returns 2015.*

She went for the last one. The tape was yellowed and brittle. She sliced through it with a jagged fingernail, her heart knocking against her ribs.

Inside, there were no Manila folders. No W-2s or spreadsheet printouts.

Instead, there was a layer of bubble wrap. Elena pulled it back, and the light from her phone reflected off a row of small, dark screens.

She reached in, her fingers brushing cold metal and plastic. They were burners. Cheap, prepay phones, the kind you buy at a convenience store and discard once the job is done.

Elena pulled one out. Then another. There were four of them in total, neatly arranged in the bottom of the box. Beside them was a small, leather-bound ledger.

She opened the ledger. The first page was a list of names.

*Sarah M. - 2018.*
*Diana V. - 2021.*
*Elena V. - 2025.*

Next to each name was a dollar amount. Next to Sarah’s, a checkmark in red ink. Next to Diana’s, the same.

Elena’s name was circled.

She reached for the third phone, the one nestled in the corner. Unlike the others, it was an older model, a silver flip-phone with a cracked casing. She pressed the power button. It didn't turn on, but she saw a small piece of blue tape on the back with a name written in Marcus’s sharp, aggressive hand.

*Sarah.*

She realized then that these weren't just phones. They were trophies. Or perhaps, they were the evidence Sarah hadn't been able to send before she "slipped."

Inside wasn't tax paper. It was a collection of phones. Four of them.