Chapter 9
Detective Vance—no relation, a tired-looking man with graying hair and mud on his boots—sat down opposite Elena with a thick manila folder and a yellow legal pad. He clicked his ballpoint pen twice before looking up. "I need you to tell me everything you remember about how you ended up in that house, Elena," he said, his tone gentle but insistent. Elena looked down at the table, tracing the scratch marks on the laminate with her fingernail. She started with the autumn afternoon Julian had offered her a ride when her car broke down on Route 31, moving through the gradual isolation, the locked doors, and the introduction of Margaret as the "director" of their domestic theater. She spoke for twenty minutes without interruption, her voice remarkably even as she detailed the digital cages Julian had built around her life. Detective Vance wrote furiously, his hand moving across the yellow paper in tight, legible loops. When she finished, the room was completely silent except for the hum of the fluorescent fixture overhead.
