That was the problem.
Some clothes. Her passport. A small travel bag. Enough to build a picture, enough to tell a story.
But she left what mattered.
Her laptop was gone, but not the charger. Emily would never have been that absentminded.
And on her nightstand, in the little pink trinket tray, lay the seashell bracelet.
I went still.
Olivero said something behind me, but I barely heard him.
I picked it up carefully, suddenly aware of how breakable it felt in my palm. The uneven shells. The repaired clasp. The tiny imperfect thing Sophie had made with shaking hands and stubborn determination after the accident.
Emily wore it when she was scared. When she missed home. When she needed reminding that fragile things could survive and still be beautiful.
She would never have left without it.
“She didn’t pack,” I said.
Olivero looked at me with enough doubt to make violence briefly appealing.
I picked up the bracelet carefully, suddenly too aware of how breakable it felt in my palm. “The person who packed doesn’t know her. Emily didn’t choose what mattered. Someone chose what looked convincing.”
I looked around the apartment again, at the missing pieces taken with just enough thought to pass at first glance.
“They went to a great deal of effort,” I said quietly. “This wasn’t random.”
My father arrived an hour later.
He came into the apartment in a dark coat still carrying the winter air with him, his face unreadable in the way that meant he was angrier than anyone present should feel comfortable with.
“Well?” I asked.
“It wasn’t Matteo.”
I stared at him.
“He knows she’s important to you,” my father said. “He’s offended by the suggestion, actually.”
I let out a harsh laugh.
“How touching.”
My father ignored that.
“He swore it wasn’t him, and in this case I believe him.”
I turned away before the fury on my face could become disrespect.
Not Matteo.
In a way, that was worse.
Matteo would at least have made sense, and Matteo wouldn’t have hurt her.
Derek arrived not long after that with video footage and his laptop under one arm, looking much too pleased with himself for a man stepping into the center of my personal hell.