Chapter 21 – A Voice from the Past

Maya stared at the photo on the dashboard for a long time.

Red ink. Thick and slashed. The word LIAR screamed at her like a scar across the paper.

She barely heard Liam on the phone with the police again, voice sharp and fast. She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. The lines of truth and fear were starting to blur.

"Did you leave the truck unlocked?" Detective Serrano asked when he arrived.

"No," Liam said. "I double-checked it last night."

The detective made a note in his pad, his face unreadable. "They didn't steal anything. They wanted you to see this."

Maya finally spoke, her voice barely audible. "They're watching us."

Serrano didn't deny it.

Later that evening, after the detective left and the adrenaline wore off, Maya stood in front of the mirror in their bedroom, trying to hold herself together.

She felt like she was unraveling—thread by thread, memory by memory.

From the doorway, Liam watched her.

"I need to ask you something," he said finally.

She didn't turn. "I figured."

"That message… the one I got… it said I should ask what you haven't told me."

Maya closed her eyes. "I've told you everything."

"No, you haven't," Liam said gently, stepping closer. "There's more. Isn't there?"

Maya swallowed hard.

She turned to face him, her throat tight. "I didn't want to believe it mattered. But I guess it does."

He waited.

"There was a second girl," she whispered. "Not the one in the alley. Another one. I saw her leaving the gallery that night. She looked scared. She dropped something—her phone, I think—but I didn't go after her."

Liam's eyes darkened. "Do you think she's connected to the man in the photo?"

"I don't know. Maybe. But… she knew him. I saw them arguing. I just pretended not to notice."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Maya looked down at her hands. "Because I wanted to forget. Because that trip was supposed to be everything good, everything new. And because I thought I'd never see any of it again."

The next day, Maya received a call from a blocked number.

She almost didn't answer.

But something—some strange, aching instinct—made her press accept.

Static buzzed on the line. Then a voice. Male. Soft. Foreign.

"You've been pretending long enough."

She froze. "Who is this?"

"You already know."

"No, I don't."

"You remember the girl. The one who ran. Her name was Elisa. She wasn't just anyone. She was my sister."

Maya's blood turned to ice.

The voice continued, calm and steady. "You watched her run that night. You could've stopped her. But you didn't."

Maya opened her mouth, but no words came.

The man sighed. "You chose silence. So now, I'm choosing noise."

The line went dead.

She dropped the phone like it had burned her.

Liam rushed in. "What happened?"

She couldn't answer. She could only whisper one word: "Elisa."

They spent the next two hours searching every news archive they could find.

Finally, an article popped up in Italian, buried deep in a local site.

Liam clicked Translate.

Missing: Elisa Rizzo, 22, last seen near the art district on October 28. Believed to be connected to alleged witness Maya Lennox.

Her photo was beneath the headline. A girl with long dark hair, wide brown eyes, and a nervous smile.

Maya stared at the image, heart racing.

"She's still missing," Liam said slowly. "After all this time."

Maya whispered, "And her brother thinks it's my fault."

That night, the apartment felt colder than usual.

Maya tried to paint, but every brushstroke looked like a smear of guilt. Liam sat beside her, but neither of them said much.

When she finally closed the studio door, she found another envelope on the floor.

No stamp. No address.

Inside was a note.

 Tell the truth. Or I will

And tucked inside… was Elisa's phone.

Still cracked.

Still logged in.

Still holding the answers Maya had run from for far too long.