Chapter 5 - The Silent House
The house was empty. David walked through the front door, the silence louder than an explosion. The cash still lay on the kitchen island, dampened by the open back door he had forgotten to close the night before. Rain had warped the edges of the hundred-dollar bills.
He picked up the silver ring from the floor where it had rolled beneath the barstool. He held it tightly until the metal bit into his skin.
Every corner of the house bore her fingerprints. Her herbal tea jars on the shelf, the baby crib half-assembled in the spare bedroom, the hand-painted wooden letters spelling Lily resting on the nursery dresser. He had complained about the clutter three days ago. Now, the room felt like an abandoned tomb.
He hired a private investigator before noon. ""Find them,"" David ordered into the phone. ""Every private clinic, every long-term care facility within five hundred miles. I want her location by tonight.""
""Mr. Vance, if she's using legal privacy shields, it takes time,"" the investigator replied.
""I don't care what it takes. Triple your rate.""
David spent the night in the nursery, sitting on the floor surrounded by unvarnished pine slats and cardboard boxes. Every time he closed his eyes, he heard her sharp gasp of pain against the granite counter. He saw her eyes—not full of anger, but hollowed out by total surrender. She hadn't left in rage. She had left because he had already made her feel alone.
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At dawn, his phone rang. He snatched it up instantly.
""David?"" It wasn't the investigator. It was his corporate board chairman. ""The morning news leaked. Someone tipped the press that your personal life is under criminal domestic abandonment review. The acquisition deal is frozen.""
