“Mom?”
David's voice came again from downstairs.
I forced myself to breathe.
“Up here.”
My voice sounded almost normal.
That surprised me.
I closed the bedroom door halfway, leaving the suitcase where it was, and started down the stairs.
David stood in the foyer with his office bag still over one shoulder.
He looked at me.
Then at the staircase.
“Why are you upstairs?”
“I thought I heard something.”
“Where's Chloe?”
The question came too quickly.
I studied his face.
He looked worried.
Not angry.
Not suspicious.
Worried.
“She said she was taking a shower.”
David frowned.
“She told me she was staying home today.”
“She is home.”
“Where?”
I looked toward the ceiling.
“She isn't in the bathroom anymore.”
He set his bag down.
“What do you mean?”
Before I could answer, the house phone was still pressed against my ear.
Lucas spoke.
“David, it's me.”
David looked at the receiver.
“Lucas?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing on the phone with Mom?”
Lucas took a breath.
“I'm at O'Hare.”
David's expression changed.
“Why?”
“I was about to fly to Rome.”
“That doesn't explain anything.”
“It does when I tell you Chloe is on my plane.”
David stared at me.
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Then David laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the alternative was admitting that the sentence made no sense.
“Chloe isn't on your plane.”
“I know what you think.”
“She is upstairs.”
“She isn't.”
“She was here ten minutes ago.”
Lucas answered carefully.
“David, I saw a woman who looks exactly like Chloe sitting in first class. I found her passport at the gate.”
David's face lost its color.
“Her passport?”
“Yes.”
“Why would she have two passports?”
“I don't know.”
David turned toward the staircase.
“Where is she?”
I shook my head.
“I don't know.”
He walked upstairs.
I followed.
Lucas remained on the phone.
The bedroom door was still partly open.
David pushed it wider.
He stopped.
The suitcase sat beside the bed.
He stared at it.
“What is that?”
“I found it upstairs.”
He walked toward it.
The luggage tag showed Chloe's name.
David crouched beside the suitcase.
He opened the folder.
Inside were printed travel documents.
His hands began to tremble.
“What are these?”
I stepped closer.
The first page was an itinerary.
Chicago to Rome.
Departure that morning.
Passenger name: Chloe.
David read it twice.
Then he looked at me.
“Mom.”
“I know.”
He picked up another document.
A hotel reservation.
Three nights.
Two guests.
A private transfer from the airport.
His jaw tightened.
Lucas spoke through the phone.
“David, don't confront her yet.”
“She's not here.”
“I know.”
“Then where is she?”
“I don't know.”
David turned toward the bathroom.
He checked it himself.
Empty.
He opened the closet.
Nothing.
The room suddenly felt too small.
Then he noticed something I hadn't.
A second phone sat beneath a stack of folded clothes.
He picked it up.
The screen was locked.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“She has another phone.”
I felt cold.
“Are you sure?”
He held it up.
“It's not hers.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I bought Chloe her phone.”
He turned it over.
No case.
No identification.
Just a plain black device.
Lucas said, “Don't unlock it.”
David looked at the screen.
“I wasn't going to.”
But he was.
I could see it in his face.
The temptation to know everything immediately was almost unbearable.
He pressed the power button.
The phone lit up.
A notification appeared.
David read it.
His expression changed.
“What does it say?” I asked.
He didn't answer.
“David?”
He turned the screen toward me.
The message was from an unknown number.
“Gate closed. She's on board.”
My stomach dropped.
Lucas went silent.
David's face hardened.
“Who is she?”
Nobody answered.
Then another notification appeared.
This one was shorter.
“Your mother still thinks she's upstairs.”
David looked at me.
I felt the room tilt.
Someone knew exactly where I was.
Someone knew what I believed.
And someone had deliberately arranged for me to think Chloe was taking a shower.
David backed away from the phone.
“Mom, go downstairs.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“I want to know what is happening.”
“You will. But not standing here.”
Lucas interrupted.
“David, listen to me. If someone planted Chloe's passport and left her phone here, this might be deliberate.”
David stared at the device.
“Why would anyone do that?”
“I don't know.”
I looked at the suitcase.
“Maybe Chloe was supposed to leave without anyone noticing.”
David's eyes met mine.
“Then why leave the passport here?”
I couldn't answer.
That question was the first crack in the story we had been building.
If Chloe had boarded the flight, why would her passport be in Lucas's possession?
Lucas had said he found it near the gate.
But perhaps the passport had been dropped intentionally.
Or perhaps someone had wanted Lucas to find it.
David picked up the second phone again.
“There are messages.”
“Don't read them,” I said.
He looked at me.
“Why?”
“Because once we know, we can't unknow it.”
He gave a humorless smile.
“Mom, I think we're already past that.”
He opened the messages.
The conversation had been recently deleted, but several notifications remained visible.
Names.
Times.
Flight details.
A hotel.
And one phrase repeated several times.
“Keep her busy.”
David stared at the screen.
“Who is 'her'?”
I knew before he said it.
“Me.”
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
The realization was worse than the mystery.
Someone had planned around my presence.
Someone had counted on me being here.
Someone knew Chloe would be able to convince me she was upstairs.
Then David noticed another message.
It was from earlier that morning.
“Once the mother confirms Chloe is home, proceed.”
He looked up.
“Mom.”
I could barely breathe.
“I confirmed it.”
David nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
The phone buzzed again.
A new message appeared.
“Don't let David call the police.”
David stared at it.
Then he laughed quietly.
“What?”
I asked.
He shook his head.
“I think we should do exactly what they told us not to do.”
He reached for his own phone.
But before he could dial, another message appeared.
This time there was an attachment.
A photograph.
David opened it.
It showed Chloe sitting in first class.
The same gray sweater.
The same face.
The same woman I had seen that morning.
Except in the photograph, she was not sitting beside a stranger.
She was holding hands with him.
David stared at the image.
His thumb trembled against the screen.
Then he zoomed in.
There was something around Chloe's wrist.
A bracelet.
I recognized it.
I had given it to her two Christmases ago.
David whispered, “That's her.”
Lucas spoke softly.
“I told you.”
David looked at me.
“Mom, where is Toby?”
The question struck me harder than anything else.
“My grandson.”
I turned toward the stairs.
“Toby was picked up by the school bus.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“Seven forty.”
David checked his phone.
“His school called me twenty minutes ago.”
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“They said Toby never got off the bus.”
The room went completely still.
My hand went cold around the phone.
Lucas's voice came through the receiver.
“David?”
David didn't answer.
He was staring at me.
The suitcase.
The second phone.
The flight.
Chloe.
And now Toby.
Everything that had seemed like separate pieces suddenly felt connected.
David grabbed his keys.
“We're going to the school.”
I followed him.
Lucas said, “I'll meet you there.”
“You can't. Your flight—”
“I already told the captain I'm not going.”
David stopped at the front door.
For the first time, his anger disappeared.
What remained was fear.
“My son is missing.”
Then his phone rang.
He answered immediately.
A woman's voice spoke for less than ten seconds.
David's face changed.
He lowered the phone.
“What?”
I asked.
He looked at me.
“The school says Toby was picked up by Chloe.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The school confirmed Chloe had taken Toby, but the flight records and hidden phone revealed that someone had been preparing this deception long before breakfast
My son said Chloe was sitting on his flight to Rome while I could hear the shower upstairs, and then the house suddenly became impossibly quiet
Part 2 of 28
