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Chapter 62 - Chapter 62 [Arc 6]

'I suppose I should have known, but there was nothing I did, nor could've done to stop you. I wish… I wish mum was here, it meant someone would be visiting you.'

When Leo had gone missing, she was sympathetic, she had seen just how much the absence affected the family, but it wasn't her family. So, she truthfully, didn't think about it too much, considering how Leo was always regarded, somewhat of a spoilsport, and with a recent change no one really knew how to feel about, it left most of the staff feeling on edge and mildly distrustful. Including Olena. 

She remembers distinctly the eerie, almost disingenuous tone of Henry's when he told her, calm, not at all too distressed as the previous days in the lead up to the day Leo went missing, in that unnerving, quiet tone, "The police will find him. People don't just vanish." 

Even when she joined the search party, after the first night, Henry mentioned, in his offhand manner, as if they were discussing the weather and not someone who was in his class, and someone she worked with, who had gone missing. 

"Let the police do their job. Exhausting yourself physically and emotionally won't bring him back." 

Henry's never lied to her, and she believes him, she always has. 

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The unease in her chest grew heavier with every day that passed, compounded by some of the questionable actions of Henry, but she hasn't gotten a straight answer from him yet. 

Henry had become less available, but his hours at work seemed to decrease as well, he sometimes even seemed too tired to have their usual late night dinner together, otherwise opting to go straight to bed. Sometimes, Olena checked on him, and found him passed out in his bed with his clothes still on, wrinkled, a mess, and some weird stains on the bottom of his trouser legs. 

Olena had figured it was something splashed onto him, the weather had been quite erratic, with the changing of seasons. Although Olena knew he was now house-sitting it just felt off. Yet, she figured that he was just spreading his wings and let him be. Let him have his independence. 

But she asks briefly, but Henry had shrugged it off, that he's "focusing more on his dissertation." Attending his university classes, but again, there's something that makes Olena uneasy. 

He mentions going to class and studying late at the library but his phone is off, sometimes for hours at a time, especially late into the night. No updates like before, no location sharing, and when Olena asks, with mounting frustration, Henry brushes it off: "No battery," or, "Sorry, I had gotten into my work." 

Olena doesn't press further, but she makes a mental note of it. 

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Olena was looking through some paperwork, that their father's estate records, Olena spots a few low-value cash withdrawals –– £30 here, £40 there –– but they were unusually frequent and drawn from ATVMs outside of the bigger more out of the way supermarkets, those that you have to drive to. 

She had texted him when these notifications came up: 

'Hey, were you using the estate card?'

'Yeah, just picking up some stuff while I was out. Sorry'

Olena hadn't thought to ask about the things he had bought, figuring that there was a reason otherwise Henry wouldn't have purchased whatever he purchased, since he was always a reasonable one, she thought nothing of it. However, what did stick out to Olena, was that there was no other transfer of the money back. Nor any follow-up. 

She was clearing up Henry's room one day, and emptying his paper bin and a piece of paper floated gently, before hitting the floor quietly. Olena holds the bin against her side, and crouches down, gently picking up the paper, it was a receipt. 

Her fingers glide over the smooth paper, and she skims the receipt –– from a hardware store, dated a few days ago.

Items: Gloves, duct tape, bleach.

Her stomach dropped slightly, but she excused it, even with how out of place it seemed. Surely, it is just a coincidence. There was nothing else that pointed to anything nefarious. 

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Henry then mentioned that he was house-sitting for a family friend –– a friend from university, a shared class, and they were disappearing for the summer, back up north of the country. 

Olena had thought nothing of it at first, even making a comment about how his friend must've been minted to have a house down in the south of the country and spending the holiday north of the country. Henry chuckled only in response and that was the end of that conversation. But later on, during the evening, Olena had thought it weird that it wasn't mentioned earlier, and it deviated slightly from the usual way of how Henry did things, or conducted himself. 

Olena asks where the house was, and Henry's answer was vague, uneasy, something that made the uneasy feeling come back and swirl around her chest: "It's by the park, you know those secluded houses by the bus stop on the street leading up to the main road. Kinda remote, quiet, it's also a good study spot." 

She remembers she offered to drop by with groceries sometime. However, Henry had declined her offer, with a lighthearted, and a somewhat blasé response, "Not necessary. It's a mess over here too, you'd loathe it." 

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The symbolic straw that broke the camel's back was when Calder missed their aunt's lunch date, something they had planned a month beforehand, which was something that rarely happened due to how hectic her schedule was, and something they didn't miss at all. However, when she confronts him later, he says he was "out at the house," working on a paper and didn't hear his phone. 

Then one night he came back, and grabbing a change of clothes, she heard him, Henry's voice was low, and a murmur, but his frustration was palpable. 

Olena knocks on the door, calling out, "Is everything alright?" 

A pause. 

Henry responded, voice muffled through the door, "Nothing, don't worry. Just a classmate panicking about our group project. Drama." 

For some reason, the words made the uneasiness creep up once more.

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Time continued to pass. 

Olena was clearing through some cabinets sorting through obsolete ones to shred, Olena noticed a thin envelope tucked behind other papers and folders –– unlabelled, but placed with intent. 

Tucked away, her fingers brushed against the cover, the plastic slightly bumpy underneath her fingertips. She gently pulled the papers out, a few loose sketches on graph paper. One is a rough floor plan of a single-level home with a small basement access off the kitchen. Another showing something like a ventilation system, annotated messily with Henry's precise notes. 

At first, Olena thought it looked like a renovation project –– maybe the house he's watching. But all of it felt too… new, specific? The notes aren't about fixing things either, they're about containing them. 

* Rotate perishables

* Keep curtains drawn in lower windows

* No lights after 2200

Olena frowns slightly in confusion, maybe it was a house check after a certain time. But, the unease claws its way up her spine now, cold and uncomfortable. She crumples the paper in her hand and sighs. 

Nothing feels right. 

She tries calling him that evening, and it goes straight to voicemail. The worry grows with every thump of her chest, Olena finishes clearing through the papers and then grabs her car keys and hurrys out. 

Driving down the quiet backroads, and the houses become sparser and sparser, before pulling over on the side of the road and then walking down. 

She sees Henry's car, but it wasn't parked close or even on the driveway, it was a bit of a walk further down the road. The pit grows in her stomach, and she stuffs her hands into her pockets, thumbing at the seam of her pockets, grasping her keys tightly, any form of defence. 

Olena doesn't approach, the fear that has built grips her tightly, and after a tense moment she hurries back to her car, and sits there. For a while. 

No one goes in or out.

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