The Suitcase She Begged Him Not to Open

Chapter 2 - The Things She Left Behind

“Elena left you,” Isabel said. “You know that.”

Vincent had spent eighteen months trying to know it.

A message from his wife's phone. A car waiting outside the service entrance. A bank transfer from their household account. Enough facts to make a story, if someone arranged them carefully.

Isabel had arranged them for him.

His wife's old friend had stayed through the searches, the interviews, and the weeks when he barely slept. Gradually she had begun managing the house. Then she had moved into a guest room. She called him darling now, although he had never asked her to share his life.

Vincent opened the first clasp.

“Those things will only upset you.”

“Then step back.”

There were clothes inside. Elena's cream coat. Two winter sweaters. A pair of boots with worn heels.

Beneath them lay her passport.

Vincent picked it up.

Isabel had told the police Elena intended to leave the country.

“She could have obtained another one,” Isabel said quickly.

He had not asked a question.

At the bottom of the suitcase were several heavy document folders and a cloth jewelry pouch. Inside the pouch, Elena's wedding ring lay beside a broken watch.

Vincent remembered the watch on her wrist the morning she disappeared.

He put everything down without searching further.

“Call the detective,” he told his assistant.

“Vincent, you're making a spectacle.”

He looked at Isabel.

“A minute ago you said these were old clothes.”

A paramedic arrived before she answered. Vincent moved out of the way as Clara was assessed. The housekeeper gathered her coat and accompanied her to the hospital.

At the door, Clara turned.

“She told me to use the back entrance,” she said. “And not tell you where the case came from.”

“Where did it come from?”

“The locked cupboard in her room.”