Chapter 5 - Elena Price Was Already Missing
Elena had not attended the party.
That suddenly seemed important.
She had organized every detail.
Guest list.
Catering.
Security coordination.
Champagne preferences.
Board documents.
Then called in sick that morning.
Adrian had received a text from her at 8:03 a.m.
Migraine. I’m sorry. Everything is set.
Police went to her apartment.
Empty.
Her phone lay on the kitchen counter.
A coffee cup sat half full.
No signs of struggle.
Her car remained downstairs.
Adrian felt sick.
“Another missing person.”
Marcus asked whether Elena could have run.
Adrian refused to assume.
Three people connected to Asteron had now vanished or apparently vanished.
Noah.
Rachel.
Elena.
Investigators examined Elena’s laptop.
A deleted folder was recovered.
E17.
Inside were internal emails.
Noah had contacted Elena two weeks before disappearing.
Why Elena?
Because Adrian’s executive assistant controlled direct access to him.
Noah wrote:
I need ten minutes with Mr. Cole without security or regulatory staff present.
Elena replied:
Tell me why.
Noah sent one attachment.
A batch-destruction certificate.
The document said E17 was destroyed.
Noah highlighted the truck manifest.
The disposal truck listed on the form had been in another state that day.
The destruction record was false.
Elena agreed to schedule a private meeting.
It never happened.
Victor Lang canceled Noah’s building access three hours before the meeting.
Reason:
Security investigation.
Adrian stared.
Victor had prevented Noah from reaching him.
Then Elena emailed Victor.
WHY WAS BENNETT BLOCKED?
Victor replied:
DIRECT ORDER FROM ADRIAN.
Adrian closed his eyes.
Again.
His name had been used as a wall.
Elena did not accept it.
She began investigating quietly.
That explained her fingerprint in Building 9.
She had found Noah’s holding site.
Maybe she had tried to help him.
Or maybe she had joined the people holding him.
Mia asked:
“Did Elena know I was hired for the party?”
Adrian looked at the catering roster.
Elena personally approved Mia Bennett.
Marcus frowned.
“She knew who you were.”
Mia’s application had not been random.
Elena placed her there.
Why?
Maybe she wanted Mia close enough to see the glass.
The unknown warning could have come from Elena.
Then investigators recovered a draft email from Elena’s laptop.
Never sent.
ADRIAN — IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, ASK WHY THOMAS NEEDED NOAH’S BROTHER’S DEATH CERTIFICATE.
Mia stared.
“My brother doesn’t have a brother.”
She was Noah’s only sibling.
Adrian reread the line.
Maybe Elena meant Adrian’s brother.
But Adrian had no brother.
Thomas did.
Adrian’s father, Richard Cole.
Thomas’s older brother.
Richard died six years ago.
Heart attack.
Mia whispered:
“Noah’s brother’s death certificate.”
Then she corrected herself.
“Maybe Noah had a brother we didn’t know about.”
She called her mother.
The answer shattered something in her family.
Before Mia and Noah were born, their mother had another child.
A son.
Daniel.
He died at three days old.
Mia had never been told.
“Why would Thomas need his death certificate?”
Her mother began crying.
Because Daniel Bennett had not been born Daniel Bennett.
His original birth certificate listed another father.
Richard Cole.
Adrian’s father.
Adrian went completely still.
Mia stared at him.
Their families were connected.
Decades before Noah worked at Cole Biomedical.
Decades before Mia entered the penthouse.
Their mother, Laura Bennett, had worked as a research assistant for Richard Cole.
They had an affair.
She became pregnant.
The baby died shortly after birth.
Richard paid the medical bills privately.
Laura left the company.
Years later she married Michael Bennett and had Noah and Mia.
Adrian looked away.
His father had never told him.
But why would Thomas need the death certificate now?
Laura answered.
Two months before Noah disappeared, someone from a law firm contacted her asking about Daniel’s records.
She refused.
Then Noah began asking questions about the same baby.
Mia stared at her phone.
“Why?”
Laura whispered:
“Because your brother found out Daniel might not have died.”
Silence.
Adrian felt every assumption change.
Asteron.
E17.
Noah.
The kidnapping.
The champagne.
Maybe the hidden scandal was not only about a drug batch.
May you like
Maybe Noah had discovered a living person whose identity threatened the Cole family.
And Thomas had been searching for proof that this person was supposed to be dead.
