Chapter 5: "Accident"

31 December 2017

23:48 PM

There was little time left at the beginning of New Year's Eve, and all the families and friends were preparing and gathering in the house to celebrate the New Year in joy; and in the hope of a better year than the previous one.

But not everyone was in their own homes, others were celebrating elsewhere, who at the bar with friends, who was alone in the house, or who had decided to go to sleep before.

Far from the bright city of sin, many miles away, there was the powerful roar of an engine that disturbed the usual silence that hovered in the corners of that little road forgotten in the night.

A luxurious Lamborghini, black like the darkness, darted on the asphalt at high speed, as if to mark the tar with its wheels.

Inside the car there were three boys: Matthew, Luke and Benjamin; the latter were two friends of Matthew's class, also from a wealthy family. Too bad expensive car mats had at least a dozen bottles of beer, from the lowest alcohol to the highest. It was clear that none of the three boys were sober and aware of the danger they were in.

And to worsen the situation it began to rain as well, at first it was just some small drops until it got worse in a real downpour, making the asphalt slippery.

Matthew also heavily intoxicated by alcohol hardly remembers anything about that evening.

But what he did remember says a lot about how the facts went that night:

They were approaching a stretch of the road where it was not protected by the road barriers and which immediately faced a cliff.

He doesn't remember who was driving but he knew that the speed was constantly increasing, so much so as to make the surrounding landscape blurred into Matthew's already clouded mind and the constant noise of rain crashing on the windshield..

And then a light that blinded his eyes and as in a slow motion like in a film, Matthew witnessed helplessly the tragedy, the light that had almost made him blind was now at the foot of the cliff until it died down slowly, returning the silence that reigned on that road, The rain stopped as if nothing had happened.

While, the Lamborghini swerved to the left, continuing for a short stretch of road until it stopped abruptly.

Then a roar and colors that illuminated the sky, then - absolute darkness. That was all Matthew remembered.

The next morning Matthew woke up in his room and with a severe headache, to worsen the situation was the sudden call of Elizabeth, the screaming and incessant crying of her coming from his phone

***

03 May 2022

22:03 PM

"Mr. Cox... are you still on the call?" asked the detective, feeling a Déjà-vu.

"Yes, excuse me, what were we talking about?" Lately it seemed to become a habit for Matthew to sink into his memories.

"You were telling me that your wife had not given you any information about her parents or any of her other acquaintances," he replied.

"Yes, that's right.... So I see no reason to continue this call. I should have answered all your questions - right, Detective?" answered Matthew, trying to end the call as soon as possible. By now he had lost all of his appetite.

And all he had left was guilt about Elizabeth.

"Yes, Mr. Cox...we're done. Well, I wish you a good evening and a happy return home" It was not clear if the detective's last words contained sarcasm or if they were sincere.

"Thank you..., goodbye detective" And with these words the call was over - but it wouldn't be the last time the detective would ''question' Matthew.

After that, Matthew put his phone back in his pocket and looked out the window - it had stopped raining.

So he turned on the Jaguar and came home - the one he shared and lived with Elizabeth.

***

22:31 PM

Once he got to his destination, he parked the Jaguar near the road, then got out of the car, locked it and ran to the front door taking care not to get his clothes wet.

The house was normal size, neither too small, nor too large. Elizabeth had chosen it, it was the house she had always dreamed of, the one with the white fence and the friendly neighborhood, and Matthew had been more than happy to accommodate her. The interior was cozy and spacious, had two floors: the ground floor consisted of five rooms - the corridor connected to the living room, then a bathroom, a dining room and the kitchen. On the second floor there was a staircase leading from the ground floor to another corridor, there were four rooms - another bathroom, a double bedroom and two empty rooms - in the hope that they would have some child to fill the void and the silence of that house.

As soon as he opened the door, Matthew was greeted by darkness, spreading over all the rooms of the house. He turned on the hall switches and looked around - the same, as he had left it the day before - empty.

The kitchen was immaculate, there was not even a dish or a dirty pot, the living room was tidy, Matthew went up to the second floor and opened the door of the two empty rooms, the first had transformed it into a kind of warehouse, inside there were several various boxes: from beach equipment to Christmas decorations and many more without use - Elizabeth loved to spruce up the house for special occasions.

Then he approached the second room, put his hand on the handle but did not open it immediately, waited a few minutes, then took a deep breath and opened it. On the side of the room there was a crib covered with a sheet, now it was just gathering dust, no matter how hard they tried - Elizabeth had never managed to get pregnant, but after yet another failure they didn't try anymore, for fear of another negative test.

On the sides of the bedroom there was a wardrobe and a changing table, the first full of new clothes and the second still wrapped in plastic. The moonlight that came from the window illuminated the wooden floor, the latter was clean and shiny - he knew that Elizabeth had never ceased to hope for a child.

Matthew came out of the room and came to the bedroom door, every step he took was getting heavier and heavier and his heart was pounding, he put his hand on the doorknob - he was shaking as nervous as Matthew was, then with a slow but gentle movement he turned the knob and slowly opened the door, fearing to find Elizabeth sleeping on the bed and waking her up. Then he looked towards the bed, the light in the corridor illuminated the empty bed - Elizabeth had not returned home.

Noticing his absence, Matthew quickly approached the bed, thinking he was hallucinating - but nothing, no trace of Elizabeth, neither of her bag nor of her cell phone.

'But where the hell could she have gone?' he thought, not knowing if the strange feeling in his stomach was hunger, anger or worry, or a mix of all of them.

He looked for the umpteenth time at the clock on his phone - 23:40.

It was getting late, where could Elizabeth be by now? And where had she gone without even telling anyone where she was going.