My blood ran cold.

They hadn’t just stolen her money; they were erasing her.

The floorboards groaned behind me.

I locked the phone screen, but the light still glowed through my fingers.

The heavy drapes of the drawing room rustled as the French doors opened.

A figure in a dark rain jacket stepped inside.

It was Deputy Sophia Reyes.

Her face was wet from the coastal drizzle, and she held a finger to her lips.

She pointed to the phone in my hand, then toward the hallway where my mother had gone.

“We don’t have much time,” Sophia whispered.

Then, the screen in my palm lit up with an incoming text from an unknown number.

The message contained only a single photo.

I stared at the screen.

The image was grainy, taken through a rain-slicked windshield.

It showed Emily sitting in the passenger seat of a black sedan.

Her eyes were wide, staring directly at the camera with absolute terror.

In the bottom right corner, the digital timestamp glowed in yellow numbers.

It was dated Friday at 11:42 PM.