Chapter 5 - The Vanishing
Forty-eight hours after the funeral, Alexander Hayes sat in the dark of his study, surrounded by the wreckage of his life.
Empty crystal tumblers covered the mahogany desk.
Documents worth millions of dollars lay scattered on the Persian rug, kicked aside and forgotten.
Daniel stood by the door, his hands clasped in front of him, his face pale with tension.
“Find her,” Alexander croaked.
His voice was barely human anymore.
He had not shaved in days, his dark stubble thick with gray hairs that had appeared seemingly overnight.
“Sir, we have checked every airport in the country,” Daniel reported cautiously.
“Her passport has not been flagged.”
“Her credit cards have not been used.”
“She didn't withdraw a single dollar from the joint accounts.”
Alexander slammed his fist onto the desk, shattering a glass into jagged fragments that bit deep into his skin.
He didn't flinch.
He didn't look down at the blood dripping onto his blotter.
“Then she is walking!” he yelled, rising to his feet and overturning his leather chair.
“She is taking buses!”
“Put five hundred men on the roads!”
“Check every train station between here and the coast!”
“Sir,” Daniel said gently, “she doesn't want to be found.”
Alexander crossed the room in two strides, grabbing his chief of security by the lapels of his heavy coat.
His eyes burned with feverish insanity.
“I don't care what she wants!”
“She is my wife!”
“Everything I built belongs to her!”
“Without her, there is nothing!”
Daniel looked down at his employer with genuine sorrow.
He had worked for Alexander for twelve years.
He had seen him order the destruction of shipping cartels without blinking.
He had seen him walk away from car crashes without checking his pulse.
He had never seen him look like a dead man walking among the living.
“With respect, Mr. Hayes,” Daniel said quietly, “you gave her away for an afternoon with Miss Carter.”
Alexander’s grip loosened.
His hands slid off Daniel’s coat as if all the strength had been drained from his limbs at once.
He stumbled backward, catching himself against the bookshelf.
“Get out,” Alexander whispered.
“Yes, sir.”
“And fire the entire preschool security team.”
“They have already been dealt with, sir.”
“No,” Alexander said, his voice dropping into a pit of bottomless fury.
“Don’t hurt them.”
“Make sure they never work in this state again.”
“Make sure every business they ever touch withers to dust.”
“Let them live every day knowing they let a child walk out of a gate because they were too busy on their phones.”
“Just like me,” he added under his breath.
When Daniel left, closing the door softly behind him, Alexander walked down the long, silent corridor of the penthouse.
He had forbidden the maids from entering Grace’s bedroom.
The door had remained closed since the morning she died.
He turned the brass handle slowly, terrified of the sound it would make.
The room smelled of strawberry shampoo and cedar blocks.
The bed was made with pink linen sheets decorated with small cartoon rabbits.
On the nightstand sat a half-drunk cup of apple juice, the liquid cloudy now, the straw tilted toward the edge.
On the floor beside the closet lay a small wooden box Grace had painted with finger paints the week before.
Alexander sat down on the small braided rug in the center of the floor.
His broad shoulders touched the sides of Grace’s toy chest.
He opened the wooden box with trembling, bloody fingers.
Inside was a collection of shiny river stones, three dried yellow leaves, and a cassette tape from a Fisher-Price voice recorder Emily had bought her for her birthday.
Alexander picked up the recorder from the shelf.
He put the tape inside with clumsy, shaking hands.
He pressed play.
A hiss of static filled the quiet bedroom.
Then came the sound of high-pitched giggles.
“Testing, testing!” Grace’s voice chirped through the tiny plastic speaker.
“This is Grace Hayes, age four!”
Alexander let out a sound that tore through his ribs like shrapnel.
He pressed the plastic machine to his chest.
“Mommy is making pancakes,” the little voice continued, punctuated by the sound of spoons clattering in the background.
“Daddy is reading the paper.”
“Daddy is very big and he can pick up the whole world!”
“When I grow up, I am going to marry Daddy because he promised he will never let anything get me.”
The tape clicked as Emily’s voice called out from the kitchen in the recording: *“Grace, don't leave the tape on, baby!”*
*“I’m telling Daddy a secret!”* Grace whispered into the microphone.
*“Daddy, I love you more than all the stars in the lake.”*
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The tape ended with a sharp snap of static.
Alexander Hayes lay face down on the pink braided rug of his daughter's bedroom and wept until his throat tore and no more sound would come from his mouth.
