Logan looked up as Jared entered the dark isolated room then gave him a sympathetic look, holding a file in his hand. His face was grim, but his tone was steady. "The police are still searching the shoreline. The divers haven’t turned up anything."

"Because there’s nothing to find," Logan snapped, rising to his feet. His fists curled at his sides, trembling. "Jean is alive, Dad. Someone has her."

Martha placed the untouched tray of food on the table, her eyes glassy with worry. "Logan..."

"No!" His voice thundered through the room, his grief twisting into raw rage. "I’ve lost too many things in my life but not her. I won’t let them take her from me."

His phone buzzed in his pocket. For a second his heart lurched... Jean?... but it was Priya.

He answered immediately, his voice rough. "Tell me you’ve found something."

"I wish I could give you a better answer ," Priya’s calm voice filled the line. "But it’s not as simple as it seems. I feel like we’re seeing a pattern here"

Logan’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the phone. "What do you mean? If someone is covering their tracks whoever took her won’t get far."

Priya hesitated. "Logan, you need to prepare yourself. What if..."

"Don’t say it," he growled. His eyes burned with a fury that even Jared flinched at. "Just tell me Jean is alive and I swear to God, I’ll tear apart every rock, every ocean, every country if I have to. I’ll find her."

With a brief calm pause...

Priya’s voice crackled through the phone, steady but urgent. "Logan, I cross checked the surveillance feeds from the cliff road as we know Jean’s car is still parked there... The police have it under lockdown as part of the investigation."

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose, his chest heavy. "Yeah. I saw it myself. But that doesn’t tell me where she is, Priya. I need more."

"I know," she said quickly, her keyboard clattering in the background. "That’s why I dug deeper. Jean’s car stopped at the cliffside around the time you said she went missing but in the span of twenty minutes after that, four other vehicles passed through that stretch. Black SUVs, tinted windows, no plates registered. They were moving in formation, almost like a convoy. None of them show up again on traffic cams after leaving that lane."

Logan’s breath caught. His hand tightened around the phone. "You’re telling me..." His voice was low, dangerous. "...while everyone believes she drove off that cliff, someone was already planning on taking her away?"

"Exactly," Priya replied. "The cliffside could be just the decoy. Whoever planned this made it look like suicide, but those cars... Logan, that’s where your answer is."

Jared, standing stiff nearby, heard every word. His face turned grim. "Logan..."

But Logan was already moving, grabbing his coat, eyes blazing with furious clarity. "They think they erased her," he ground out, his voice trembling with rage. "But Jean is alive and I’ll find her, even if I have to tear apart every shadow they’re hiding in."

___________________

Logan’s car sped down the highway, his phone on speaker as Priya’s voice filled the silence.

"I’m in the city’s surveillance grid now," Priya said, her tone sharp with focus. "Those SUVs disappeared after the cliff road, but they couldn’t have just vanished into thin air. I’m backtracking the feeds frame by frame."

Logan’s hands clenched the wheel. "Hurry."

A pause, the sound of furious typing coming from her side, then... "There. Got something. One of the cameras picked them up further down... heading into the industrial district. Old warehouses, garages, places no one checks anymore. The convoy split up there, but three SUVs circled back and left. Only one stayed behind."

Logan’s pulse spiked. "Coordinates."

"I’m sending them to you now," Priya said. "It matches the time window perfectly. That garage is the only place they had enough time to keep someone without being noticed."

Logan’s knuckles whitened. His mind replayed Jean’s face, her last look before everything went wrong. "Then that’s where they had her," he muttered, his voice vibrating with restrained fury.

"Logan," Priya warned gently, "it may already be cleared out. If they moved her again, you’ll only find traces."

"Traces are enough," Logan snapped, though his eyes were burning with something deeper than anger. "Because traces mean I’m on the right path and if Jean was there... I’ll feel it."

____________________

The old garage smelled of rust and damp concrete. Dust clung to the air, disturbed only by the crunch of Logan’s shoes against the floor. He swept his flashlight slowly, every nerve stretched taut.

Something glittered faintly near the wall. Logan crouched, heart almost in his throat, and his fingers closed around a small, broken piece of silver... the shattered half of a pendant.

Jean’s pendant.

His chest constricted, a sharp ache tearing through him. "Jean..."

Before the grief could crush him, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Jared’s name flashed on the screen. Logan answered immediately. "Dad, I found something. She was here. I know she was..."

"Logan," Jared cut in, his voice grim. "You need to look at the news right now."

Logan frowned, confusion lacing his panic. He pulled up the live stream link Jared forwarded. The screen lit up with a press conference.

Alex Adams stood behind the podium, his face painted in false grief, while Derek stood grimly at his side. Cameras flashed in a frenzy.

"...with heavy hearts, we must confirm," Alex was saying, "that Jean Adams jumped off the cliff yesterday. The authorities are still searching, but the strong currents make recovery unlikely. We ask for privacy during this painful time."

Reporters shouted questions, microphones jutted forward. Derek leaned toward the mic, his expression sharp and calculated.

"We also want the truth known," he said firmly. "Jean was suffering in silence. Years of abuse at the hands of Logan Kingsley finally broke her spirit. My daughter didn’t deserve that."

Gasps rippled through the press pool. Words like abuse, suicide, cover up filled the captions already flooding the news ticker.

Logan’s hand shook around his phone. His vision blurred red with fury. "They’re framing me..." he whispered.

Jared’s voice broke through. "Logan... listen to me. They’re trying to bury you along with Jean. They want the world to believe she’s dead and that you killed her."

Logan’s jaw tightened until it hurt, his other hand clenching the broken pendant so hard it cut into his palm. His voice was low, lethal. "Then I’ll make the world see the truth. Jean is alive and I’ll drag them all down for this lie."