Three Years of Silence

CHAPTER TWO

Lena’s pov

Three years had passed, but I still remembered the exact moment my life changed.

Vivienne was supposed to marry Damien Vale that morning.

Instead, I stood inside our family home, staring at her wedding dress hanging beside the bedroom door while police officers searched every room for the third time.

Her phone was on the bedside table. Her handbag was on the chair. Her shoes were beside the bed.

Everything was there.

Except my sister.

“Lena, you need to sit down,” my mother said.

I turned to her. “How can you tell me to sit down when Vivienne is missing?”

“Please. The police are doing their work.”

“They have been doing their work for hours! They keep asking the same questions, and nobody has found anything.”

My mother looked away.

That small movement caught my attention.

“Mum?”

“What?”

“Is there something you haven’t told them?”

Her eyes returned to mine. “What kind of question is that?”

“I don’t know. But something isn’t right.”

Before she could answer, one of the officers walked into the room. He held a small notebook in his hand and looked between us.

“Miss Ashford, we need to ask you a few more questions.”

I followed him downstairs.

For the next twenty minutes, he asked me about Vivienne’s friends, her habits, and the last time I had spoken to her. I answered everything I could remember.

Then he asked a question that made my stomach tighten.

“Did your sister seem afraid of anyone connected to the Vale family?”

I stared at him.

“What do you mean?”

“Did she ever mention feeling unsafe around her fiancé or his relatives?”

I remembered the strange calls. The way Vivienne sometimes lowered her voice when she answered them. The way she had started checking the front door twice before going to bed.

But I also remembered her smile whenever Damien’s name came up.

“I don’t know,” I finally said. “She had been acting strangely, but she never told me why.”

The officer wrote something in his notebook.

“Did she tell you where she was going this morning?”

“No.”

“Did she mention meeting anyone?”

“No.”

He closed the notebook.

“If you remember anything else, contact us.”

“That is all? You’re leaving?”

“We have other officers looking into the case.”

“But you haven’t found her!”

His expression softened, but his answer did not.

“We will contact you when we have something.”

He walked away.

I stood there, feeling as if the whole world had decided that my sister could simply disappear and everyone should accept it.

Then I saw a black car outside the house.

A man in a dark suit stepped out. He spoke briefly to the officer near the front door before handing him an envelope.

The officer looked inside.

His face changed.

“What is that?” I asked as I approached them.

Both men turned towards me.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” the man in the suit replied.

“Then why are you giving it to the police?”

“Miss Ashford, I suggest you let the officers handle this matter.”

“I am her sister!”

“And I understand that you are upset.”

He said it so calmly that I wanted to scream.

“What is your name?”

He ignored my question and returned to his car.

I watched him drive away.

When I turned back, the officer was putting the envelope inside his folder.

“Please,” I said. “At least tell me what was in it.”

“Miss Ashford, go home and get some rest.”

“This is my home.”

He gave me a tired look before walking outside.

I remained at the door long after he left.

That was the first time I understood something frightening.

Finding Vivienne might not be as simple as reporting her missing.

Someone was already deciding what I was allowed to know.

And I had no idea who that person was.

By evening, the Vale family released a short statement saying they were deeply concerned about Vivienne’s disappearance and were cooperating with the authorities.

Damien Vale did not appear in public.

He did not come to our house.

He did not call me.

I kept checking my phone, expecting him to contact us with some explanation. After all, he was the man Vivienne had been preparing to marry. Surely he would know something that could help us find her.

But the night passed without a word from him.

The next morning, I went to the Vale residence myself.

The mansion stood behind tall iron gates, surrounded by trees and security cameras. Even from the road, I could tell that the people inside were used to keeping the world at a distance.

A guard stepped in front of me when I approached the entrance.

“I need to speak to Damien Vale.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No. My sister is missing, and she was supposed to marry him yesterday.”

His expression changed for a moment.

Then he reached for his radio.

I waited while he spoke to someone inside. A few minutes later, he returned.

“Mr. Vale is unavailable.”

“Unavailable?” I repeated. “His fiancée is missing!”

“I am sorry, miss. Those are my instructions.”

“Then tell him Lena Ashford is here. Tell him I won’t leave until he speaks to me.”

The guard’s jaw tightened.

Another man appeared behind the gates. He was older, with silver hair and a face that showed no emotion.

“Miss Ashford,” he said, “the family has already given its statement. If there is anything the police need, they will contact us.”

“I am not the police. I am her sister.”

“And we understand your grief.”

“Stop saying that! If you understood, you would help me find her.”

For the first time, the man’s expression hardened.

“You should go home.”

I looked beyond him, hoping to catch a glimpse of Damien or someone who could tell me where he was.

Instead, the gates began to close.

I stepped back before they could touch me.

As I walked away, I heard the lock click behind me.

I had never felt so helpless.

But I made myself a promise that day.

If the police could not find Vivienne, I would.

Even if it took the rest of my life.

Three years later, I was still keeping that promise.

My small apartment had become a place where missing-person posters covered the walls, photographs filled every drawer, and unanswered questions followed me from room to room.

I worked as a photo restorer. Most of my days were spent repairing old pictures for people who wanted to save memories that time had damaged.

I liked my work because it gave broken things another chance.

Sometimes, I wished people could be repaired the same way.

Every morning, I woke up and checked my phone.

Every night, I went to bed wondering whether Vivienne was alive, whether she was safe, and whether she was somewhere waiting for me to find her.

I never got used to not knowing.

My cousin Ethan was one of the few people who understood why I refused to stop searching.

He visited me that evening carrying two takeaway meals and a folder.

“You haven’t eaten properly today, have you?” he asked.

I kept my eyes on the computer screen. “I ate.”

“What did you eat?”

“Something.”

“Lena.”

I turned to him. “Are you here to question me or help me?”

He placed the food on the table.

“Both, apparently.”

Despite myself, I almost smiled.

Ethan sat beside me and opened the folder. Inside were copies of old reports, newspaper articles, and a list of people who had attended Vivienne’s engagement party.

“I went through the names you gave me,” he said. “Most of them either moved away or refused to talk.”

“Of course they did.”

“But I found someone who might remember something.”

I turned towards him immediately.

“Who?”

“A woman who worked at the Vale residence around the time of the wedding. She left her job shortly after Vivienne disappeared.”

“Do you have her number?”

“No. I only found an old address, and I haven’t confirmed whether she still lives there.”

“Then we go tomorrow.”

Ethan studied me. “You don’t even know if she will speak to us.”

“She might know something.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Then we look for someone else.”

He sighed, but he did not argue.

That was what I appreciated about Ethan. He never told me to move on. He knew I couldn’t.

I pulled the photograph of Vivienne from beneath my keyboard.

She was smiling in it, her long hair falling over one shoulder. It had been taken a few days before her wedding. I remembered teasing her because she kept asking me whether her dress looked good, even though she had already tried it on a dozen times.

She had laughed and thrown a pillow at me.

The memory hurt more than I expected.

“I should have noticed,” I whispered.

Ethan looked at me. “Noticed what?”

“That she was worried about something. I kept asking her what was wrong, and she kept saying she was fine. I should have pushed harder.”

“You were her sister, not a mind reader.”

“But what if she needed me?”

“You were there for her, Lena. Whatever happened, you cannot blame yourself for something you don’t understand.”

I looked down at the photograph.

Three years of searching had taught me how to follow records, question strangers, and recognize when someone was hiding information.

But none of those things could answer the question that haunted me most.

What happened to Vivienne on her wedding day?

My computer chimed.

A new email had arrived from an address I did not recognize.

There was no subject, and the message contained only one sentence.

Stop looking into the Vale family.

I read it twice.

Then I turned the screen towards Ethan.

His face lost its easy expression.

“When did this come?”

“Just now.”

“Have you received anything like this before?”

“No.”

He leaned closer to the screen. “Don’t reply to it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Save the message. Take a screenshot. We should report it.”

I did as he asked, but my hands had started to shake.

For three years, people had ignored me, dismissed me, or told me there was nothing more they could do.

Nobody had threatened me.

Not until now.

Ethan stood and checked the lock on my front door.

“Maybe this is someone trying to scare you,” he said. “It doesn’t mean they know anything.”

“Then why mention the Vale family?”

He had no answer.

I looked at the photograph again.

Vivienne had disappeared before I could understand why she had been so troubled. Now, someone was warning me to stay away from the people she had been about to join.

I could not tell whether the message was connected to her disappearance.

But I knew I could not ignore it.

I opened the email details and searched for anything that might identify the sender. There was nothing useful at first. Then I noticed a name in the forwarded information attached to the message.

It was the name of a private security company that had once worked for the Vale family.

I read it aloud.

Ethan came back to the table.

“Are you sure?”

I nodded.

He took the phone from my hand and examined the details himself.

“This could be important,” he said quietly.

“Can you find out who sent it?”

“I can try.”

I looked at the clock. It was almost midnight, but sleep was the last thing on my mind.

For the first time in months, I felt as if my search had finally touched something real.

Someone had noticed what I was doing.

Someone knew I was looking into the Vale family.

And someone wanted me to stop.

I saved every detail before the email could disappear, then placed Vivienne’s photograph beside the computer.

“I am going to find out what happened to you,” I whispered.

Ethan was still studying the screen when his phone rang.

He answered, listened for a few seconds, and then slowly looked at me.

“What is it?” I asked.

He ended the call.

“Lena, I think we need to talk to someone before we go to that old address tomorrow.”

“Who?”

He hesitated.

“Damien Vale.”

My heart gave a hard, painful beat.

After three years of silence, the man who had been supposed to marry my sister was suddenly back in the middle of my search.

And now, someone was threatening me because of his family.

I looked at Vivienne’s photograph, then at the message on my screen.

I had spent three years trying to find my sister.

But what if getting closer to Damien Vale was the one thing that could put me in danger?