Chapter 15 - Elena’s Cabin
Police reached the cabin before Adrian.
Detective Brooks ordered him to stay away.
For once, he listened.
The cabin was empty.
A broken rear window suggested Vivian had entered recently.
Inside, officers found drawers pulled open and boxes scattered across the floor.
She had been searching.
But for what?
Margaret provided the answer.
“Elena kept a journal inside the wall.”
Adrian stared at her.
“What?”
“She and Vivian used to hide things in that cabin when they were children.”
“Where?”
Margaret described a loose wooden panel behind the upstairs bookshelf.
Detective Brooks found it twenty minutes later.
Inside were three journals.
Vivian had apparently not known the exact hiding place.
The final journal ended two days before Elena’s hospital procedure.
Adrian read it with a detective present.
Elena described increasing fear.
Vivian had stolen one of Margaret’s pills.
Elena had seen the bottle in Vivian’s purse.
When confronted, Vivian claimed Margaret had asked her to carry it.
Elena did not believe her.
Then came the entry that finally explained Vivian’s motive.
Vivian told me Adrian would have been happier with her.
I thought she was joking.
She wasn’t.
I asked whether she was in love with him.
She said love was childish.
She said she understood him better than I did.
Grace stopped reading.
Adrian’s expression became unreadable.
Elena continued.
She thinks everything I have should have belonged to her.
My marriage.
My house.
My son.
My life.
The final entry was shorter.
I am going to tell Adrian everything after the procedure.
I have changed Leo’s guardianship documents.
I am also asking Adrian to remove Vivian from our home.
I am scared she knows.
Grace closed the journal.
For a moment nobody spoke.
Then Detective Brooks asked, “Did Vivian ever express romantic interest in you?”
Adrian shook his head.
“Never directly.”
Grace looked at him.
Adrian continued.
“She was always around.”
He remembered dinners.
Business events.
Late-night phone calls.
Vivian arriving moments after Elena left a room.
Compliments disguised as jokes.
You should have married the organized sister.
He had laughed.
So had Elena.
At least at first.
Detective Brooks took the journal.
“This helps establish motive.”
“Can you arrest her?”
“We have to find her first.”
Adrian looked toward the lake.
A storm was moving in.
Dark clouds rolled across the water.
Grace stood beside him.
“She wanted Elena’s life.”
Adrian said nothing.
Grace continued.
“And when Elena died, she got part of it.”
Vivian moved into the guesthouse.
She helped raise Leo.
She attended Adrian’s company events.
People described her as practically family.
Then Grace arrived.
Grace did not just threaten Vivian’s influence.
She threatened the fantasy Vivian had built.
A new wife.
A new mother for Leo.
A finalized adoption.
Vivian losing everything again.
Adrian looked at Grace.
“She targeted you because you were taking the place she thought belonged to her.”
Grace shook her head.
“I wasn’t taking anything.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Grace looked at the journal.
“Elena’s place belongs to Elena.”
She touched Adrian’s arm.
“My place was supposed to be different.”
Adrian’s throat tightened.
Grace had understood something Vivian never could.
Love did not require erasing the dead.
There was enough room for memory and a future.
Vivian had destroyed both trying to possess them.
Marcus approached.
“Adrian.”
“What?”
“We found a vehicle leaving the north road.”
“Vivian?”
“Possibly.”
“Heading where?”
Marcus held up his phone.
“Toward the estate.”
Grace immediately looked at Leo’s photograph on Adrian’s lock screen.
The color left her face.
May you like
Adrian called security.
No answer came from the nursery wing.
