The Empty Apartment
Chapter 06 - The Empty Apartment
Adrian returned to Rachel's building that evening.
Apartment 3B was empty.
The door stood open.
A chair had been overturned.
Noah's purple microphone lay broken on the floor.
Adrian's heart stopped.
"Rachel?"
No answer.
He rushed through the rooms.
Nothing.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
Adrian answered.
"Hello?"
A child's frightened breathing came through the line.
"Noah?"
"Mr. Cole?"
Adrian gripped the phone.
"Where are you?"
"I don't know."
"Is your mother with you?"
"Yes."
He heard Rachel whispering urgently in the background.
Then the line cut.
Adrian called back.
Nothing.
He immediately contacted police.
But before officers arrived, his driver found something under the kitchen table.
A second phone.
Cheap.
Disposable.
It contained one unsent text message from Rachel.
A location.
An old storage facility near the industrial district.
Adrian drove there himself.
He found Rachel and Noah hiding inside a locked storage unit.
Rachel had taken them there after noticing two men watching the apartment.
"You followed us," she accused.
"No."
"Then how did they find us?"
Adrian had no answer.
Then he remembered.
His limousine.
His driver.
His security team.
His company phone.
Victor had access to everything.
Rachel looked at him.
"Now do you believe me?"
Adrian stared at Noah, who clutched the broken microphone against his chest.
"Yes."
Rachel exhaled.
"Good."
She walked toward the back of the storage unit.
Behind several boxes stood an old army trunk.
"Ethan left this with me."
Adrian froze.
Rachel unlocked it.
Inside were dozens of files.
Photographs.
Bank records.
Audio tapes.
And a folded map.
On top of everything was a recent picture of Ethan.
Not nine years old.
Recent.
On the back, someone had written a date.
Six months earlier.
Adrian turned the photograph over.
May you like
His brother was alive.
And standing beside him in the picture was Victor Hale.
