CHAPTER 18
Missing
My heart starts racing.
My head spins as I stare at the flyer.
Missing?
We just saw her two nights ago at dinner.
Missing how? When?
A cold feeling crawls up my spine.
And then another thought hits me.
Nadia.
How does Nadia know Sophie Lewis? I need answers.
“Excuse me,” I mutter quickly to Andrew and James.
Neither of them seems to notice how fast I’m moving as I step away. I hurry down the hallway, scanning the rows of cubicles. Nadia’s desk is near the far corner. I spot her just as she’s gathering her bag. She’s crying. Quietly wiping her face with a tissue while shutting down her computer.
“Nadia,” I say gently.
She looks up, startled.
“Oh—sorry,” she says quickly, embarrassed, brushing the tears from her cheeks.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I say. “But… How do you know Sophie Lewis?”
Her expression shifts immediately.
“You know my sister?”
Something in me pulls tight without warning.
“Your sister?”
“Yes,” Nadia says. “Sophie’s my sister.”
“Oh,” I say quickly. “Yes—uh—she works with my husband. My husband’s a doctor too.”
Nadia looks slightly confused but nods.
“She was supposed to meet me two nights ago,” she says.
“She just… didn’t show up.” Her voice shakes slightly.
“That’s not like her.” She wipes another tear from her face.
“It was my son’s—Uh, Her nephew’s birthday the next day.
” she explains. “We were going to surprise him that night with a gift.” She exhales shakily. “I waited for her for hours.”
My heart begins beating harder.
“But she never came,” Nadia continues. “Her phone just goes straight to voicemail.” She looks down at the desk.
“I went to the police the next day,” she says.
“But they told me people always think they have to wait 24 hours, which isn’t actually true…
they just said they didn’t have enough information yet.
” Her voice breaks slightly. “I still can’t reach her.
I went around her neighborhood yesterday.
I called her work. No one has seen her.”
My throat feels dry.
“I… saw her two days ago,” I say quietly.
Nadia looks up quickly.
“You did?”
“Yes,” I say. “We all went to dinner.” I swallow. “Marcus… Emily… Sophie… and Dominic, my husband. We uh— left first and Sophie stayed with the rest of the group.”
And there it is again. That feeling. The one that starts low in your stomach. The one that crawls upward slowly, tightening your chest. Like something inside you is trying to scream a warning before your mind is ready to hear it.
A Gut feeling.
“Have you spoken to the staff at the hospital?” I ask carefully.
Nadia nods weakly.
“I called,” she says. “They said she never showed up for her shift.”
She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.
“And I spoke with one of her coworkers—Emily,” she adds. “She said they saw Sophie about two days ago for dinner and they all went their separate ways after.”
The moment presses in, heavy and tight.
“But that’s just it,” Nadia continues quietly. “No one else has seen her after that.”
My stomach sinks.
“Do you know if there’s anywhere else she might have gone?” I ask. “Any other family member? A friend maybe?”
Nadia shakes her head.
“No,” she says quietly. “It’s just me and her.”
A lump forms in my throat.
“What about her husba— ex husband?” I ask.
“I called him that night too,” Nadia says.
“Right after she didn’t show up.” Her voice softens.
“He’s in Australia. Halfway across the world.
” She wipes at her eyes again. “We FaceTimed. He was with his friends hiking somewhere out in the woods.” She shakes her head.
“So I know he has nothing to do with this.”
Her voice cracks. “I just… I don’t know where she is.”
For a moment she looks completely lost, like the ground beneath her feet has disappeared. Instinctively, I step forward and wrap my arms around her.
She freezes for a second.
Then she hugs me back tightly.
“I’m so scared,” she whispers.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her softly. “We’re going to find Sophie.”
Nadia’s grip tightens around me as she starts crying again. Not the quiet tears from before, this time it’s deeper. Like she’s finally letting something out, like she’s been holding this fear inside because no one else believes her.
Because everyone else thinks Sophie simply left.
But Nadia knows. Her sister wouldn’t just disappear.
The drive home drags, heavy and unrelenting.
The road stretches endlessly in front of me, but my mind is somewhere else entirely.
My hands grip the steering wheel tighter than they should as the same thought circles my mind again and again.
Dominic couldn’t have done this. Right? He was with me that night.
We were all at dinner together, laughing, talking, pretending everything was normal.
Then we came home. The air stalls in my lungs as the thought repeats in my mind.
I shake my head slightly, trying to push it away before it can grow into something worse.
Dominic wouldn’t—
My phone lights up on the console beside me, pulling me out of the spiral of thoughts.
A text message.
Dominic: Got called in for a long shift. Might be about 16 hours. I won’t be home until early morning.
I stare at the message longer than I should.
The screen glows softly in the dim light of the car while the engine hums beneath me.
After a moment, I lock the phone and pull into the driveway.
The house greets me with the same quiet stillness as always.
It feels empty, almost hollow, like the walls are holding their breath.
I walk inside slowly, dropping my purse and keys onto the kitchen counter.
The small clatter echoes louder than usual in the silence.
I grab a glass from the cabinet and walk over to the sink, turning on the faucet.
Water rushes out in a steady stream, splashing gently against the bottom of the glass.
I stare at it absently as the glass fills.
And then, something shifts in my mind. A memory flickers suddenly, like a light switching on in a dark room.
Dominic leaving the house after our argument.
The door slamming.
The sound of his car driving away.
The glass slips from my hand.
It crashes into the sink, shattering against the metal.
My heart begins pounding violently in my chest.
Dominic wasn’t with me the whole night.
He left.
A tight pressure closes in, inch by inch as the realization settles in. The blood on his hands, the affair, me confronting Sophie at dinner, Dominic suddenly wanting a child.
What if—
My lungs suddenly refuse to fill. I try to inhale, but the air won’t come. Panic spreads through my chest like fire, hot and suffocating. My fingers tremble as my heart races faster and faster, beating so violently it feels like it might break through my ribs.
The room tilts slightly around me, and my vision blurs at the edges. I grip the counter, gasping for air.
Breathe.
But I can’t.
Each breath is shallow and useless, like trying to breathe through water. Something in me contracts sharp with every second that passes. I slide down onto the kitchen floor, pressing my palms against my chest as if I can physically hold my heart in place.
Minutes pass before my breathing slowly begins to steady again.
In. Out. In. Out.
My head clears just enough for another thought to surface. Dominic’s office. The locked drawer. I push myself up slowly, my legs still shaking beneath me. Opening the kitchen drawer, I grab the first tool my fingers find without even looking.
Then I head upstairs. Dominic’s office is dark when I step inside.
The quiet in the room feels different somehow, heavier than the rest of the house.
I walk toward his desk. The drawer is still locked.
My hands tremble as I wedge the tool between the wood and the frame.
I push against it, trying to force the lock loose.
Nothing. I push harder. The wood creaks under the pressure.
“Come on,” I whisper under my breath.
I force the tool deeper and pull with all my strength.
The drawer suddenly snaps open with a loud crack.
My heart pounds as I pull it out. Inside are stacks of papers.
Medical documents, hospital records, CDs labeled Xray.
Doctor’s notes, patient history forms. I toss the papers aside quickly, scanning through them with shaking hands. Then something catches my eye.
A number. 858-654-3210 My stomach twists. I remember Marcus’s number. Printed beside it: Dr. Marcus Hale – Psychiatrist My mind flashes back to dinner.
Dominic laughing casually, waving it off like it was some old joke. He used to diagnose me with all sorts of things. At the time it sounded harmless. Just teasing between coworkers, something I didn’t think twice about. But now the words land differently. He used to diagnose me.
My heart begins beating harder. A psychiatrist. I stare at the paper, my fingers tightening around it. Why would Marcus be diagnosing him? Why would Dominic need a psychiatrist? For five years I’ve known him, five years of living together, five years of sharing a bed, a home, a life.
And not once, not once—has he ever mentioned seeing a psychiatrist. I’ve never seen medication bottles in the bathroom cabinet, except for his sleeping pills. I’ve never heard him talk about therapy or appointments, I’ve never noticed anything unusual at all.
Nothing.
Not even once.
Unless…
Unless he never wanted me to know.
The paper trembles slightly in my hand. Marcus isn’t just Dominic’s coworker. He’s his psychiatrist. A wave of dread washes over me, but I keep digging through the drawer anyway. More files, more notes. Then something black appears beneath the stack of paperwork.
Fabric.
My hands freeze.
Slowly, carefully, I pull it free.
My breath catches.
A scarf.
Black.
Soft.
And in the corner, embroidered in white thread, two small initials:
S.L.
The room spins around me. Sophie was wearing this scarf the day she went missing.
The day Dominic left after our argument.
My fingers start shaking uncontrollably as the realization crashes over me.
My mind is moving too fast, too loud, every thought colliding with the next.
I can’t even look at the rest of the drawer.
I shove the papers back inside, slamming the drawer closed but the scarf stays in my hand.
My mind is racing too fast to think clearly.
I rush downstairs, grabbing my keys from the counter and within seconds I’m back in my car, the engine starting before I even realize what I’m doing.
Tears blur my vision as I drive.
I pull over near the small park down the street from the house.
The same park where I sat earlier by the lake.
My hands tremble as I grip the steering wheel.
I pull out my phone. I’m going to call Clara, I think.
She’ll know what to do. She always knows what to say.
My thumb moves toward her name. But as I scroll through my contacts, my finger passes it and without thinking, I press another name.
Lucien.
And the phone begins to ring. “Sera?” His voice comes through the phone, thick with confusion.
“Lucien…” My voice breaks as soon as I say his name. The words get tangled in my throat, stumbling over each other. “He… it’s him… the scarf… she’s missing… I— I talked to her sister and she said it’s not like her and I have a feeling he has something to do with this and—and I’m so scared.”
“Sera,” he says immediately, his voice suddenly steady and urgent. “Where are you?”
For a second my mind goes blank. My heart is beating so fast it feels like it’s shaking my entire body. My fingers tremble around the phone as I try to form words.
“I—I…” I swallow hard. “I’m… I’m at the park near the office. I’m parked.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” Lucien says quickly. “Stay there. I’m coming to you.”
The call ends. The silence inside the car feels enormous. My hands cover my mouth as the tears finally spill over. My shoulders shake as I try to hold back the sound of crying, but it’s impossible. My mind won’t stop replaying everything.
The dinner.
Dominic’s nervous look.
Their affair.
The blood on his hands.
The missing flyer.
The scarf in the drawer.
I look down at my hand.
My wedding ring catches the faint glow of the streetlight outside.
For a moment I just stare at it. Five years, five years of believing I knew the man I married.
My gaze shifts to the passenger seat and the scarf lies there.
Black fabric folded loosely, the white S.L.
stitched into the corner like a quiet accusation.
A cold wave of dread washes over me. What if Dominic really did this? What if Sophie is hurt?
Or worse.
My stomach twists painfully as my mind replays every possible scenario.
Each one feels worse than the last, like my brain is determined to torture me with every terrible possibility.
I must have replayed the same thoughts a hundred times.
Then, headlights sweep across the windshield.
A car pulls into the empty parking spot beside me.
A Mercedes. My heart jumps. The engine shuts off and the driver’s door swings open. Lucien steps out. The moment he sees me sitting in the car, his entire expression changes. Concern, fear. He walks quickly toward my door. I open it and step out at the same time.
The second I’m standing in front of him, Lucien cups my face in both of his hands. His palms are warm against my cold skin as he studies my eyes like he’s searching for something. I grab his wrists instinctively, my fingers curling around them.
“Lucien, I’m sorry, I know you were leaving for New York today. I didn’t mean to—” The words rush out of me, desperate and scattered.
But he cuts me off. Like nothing else matters right now. His thumbs brush gently against my cheeks as he looks straight into my eyes.
He says softly, his voice full of worry. “Baby, are you okay?”