Chapter 6: The Missing Piece

Chapter 6: The Missing Piece

The daylight that filtered into Leo’s father’s house did little to dispel the gloom that had followed them. Leo and Kiwi moved like ghosts themselves, speaking in hushed tones, starting at every creak of the floorboards. The scent of coffee lingered in the air, a phantom that refused to be exorcised, a constant reminder of the spectral boy who had stood in the living room and pointed them back toward their nightmare. They were trapped, not by walls, but by the clinging tendrils of a tragedy they had accidentally unearthed.

Leo’s father, bless his heart, tried to create an island of normalcy in their sea of trauma. He made pancakes, kept the television on to a morning news program, filling the silence with the mundane chatter of traffic reports and weather forecasts. Leo and Kiwi picked at their food, the simple act of eating feeling like a betrayal of the horror they knew was real.

Then, a breaking news banner flashed across the screen.

“We’re getting reports that police have apprehended a suspect in the Havenwood Apartments murder case,” the anchorwoman said, her expression serious. A photo appeared over her shoulder. It was a mugshot of a man with a heavy brow and dark, furious eyes. Even in the grainy photo, his rage was palpable. “Marcus Thorne, husband of the deceased Elara Thorne and father of Caleb Thorne, was arrested early this morning in a neighboring state. Police are citing overwhelming forensic evidence found in his impounded vehicle and a lack of a credible alibi.”

A wave of dizzying, disbelieving relief washed over Leo. He looked at Kiwi, whose eyes were wide, a single tear tracing a path down her cheek. “They got him,” she breathed. “It’s over. They actually got the monster.”

For a moment, it felt true. The monster had a name and a face. He was in a cage. The logic was simple: the murderer was caught, so the spirits of his victims could finally rest. They would be free. The knot of terror that had been lodged in Leo’s chest for days began to loosen. Maybe, just maybe, they could go back to their lives.

The hope was a fragile, beautiful thing. And it lasted less than an hour.

They were in the kitchen, helping Leo’s father with the dishes, when the coffee smell returned. It didn’t creep in this time; it slammed into the room, a thick, nauseating wave of burnt, bitter grounds. It was stronger than ever before, an act of olfactory violence.

Simultaneously, the whispers began. They weren't the faint, indecipherable murmurs from before. They were louder, desperate, clawing their way into the audible world. A woman’s voice and a boy’s, overlapping in a frantic, sorrowful duet.

“Not enough… he didn’t get it…”

“Find it. Please… you have to find it…”

“In the dark… where he couldn’t see…”

Leo dropped a plate. It shattered on the linoleum floor, the sound unnaturally loud in the charged atmosphere. He and Kiwi stared at each other, their fleeting hope crumbling to dust. The arrest hadn’t brought peace. It had agitated the spirits, made them more desperate.

Then, the world dissolved.

It wasn't a gentle fading. The cheerful yellow kitchen vanished in a sickening lurch, replaced by the dingy, familiar walls of Apartment 1000L. It was a vision, shared and absolute. They were standing, immaterial, in the middle of the spare room, but it was not their present. It was the past.

Elara Thorne stood before them, alive, her face a mask of terror. She wasn’t looking at them, but past them, at a large, furious Marcus Thorne. His face was purple with rage, his voice a guttural roar that Leo felt in his teeth.

“Where is it, Elara? You think you can hide it from me? Everything in this house is mine!”

“It’s for Caleb,” she pleaded, her voice trembling. “It’s all we have left. Please, Marcus.”

The vision skipped, a glitch in a traumatic memory. Now Elara was on the floor. There was the flash of something sharp and heavy in Marcus’s hand. The silent, psychic scream that Leo recognized from his first night in the apartment ripped through his skull, a hundred times more powerful now, raw and unfiltered. He saw the glint of metal, the spray of blood, the crude, horrific severing of her fingers as she held up her hand to defend herself.

The vision fractured again. Elara was… gone. Only her broken form remained on the floor. Marcus was rampaging through the small room, tearing it apart, his roars of rage turning into frantic, guttural questions directed at her body.

“Where did you put it? WHERE IS IT?”

He ripped a loose floorboard up, finding nothing. He tore a vent cover from the wall, his hands bloody. He was a man possessed, his murderous rage secondary to a frantic, desperate search. He wasn't just a killer. He was a thief who hadn’t found his prize.

Then, a final, heartbreaking image burned into their minds before the vision shattered. Young Caleb, small and terrified, pressing a small, dark, intricately carved wooden box into a dark space. A space behind something. He was crying silently, his small hands pushing the box deep into the shadows just before his father turned his rage on him.

The yellow kitchen snapped back into existence. Leo and Kiwi stumbled back, gasping for air, clutching the kitchen counter for support. Leo’s father was staring at them, his face pale with confusion and fear at their shared, violent reaction to nothing he could see.

“What was that?” Leo choked out, his eyes locked with Kiwi’s.

“Did you see…?” Kiwi whispered, her face ashen. “The box. He was looking for a box. The murder… it was because of a box.”

The pieces clicked into place with horrifying clarity. The police had arrested Marcus Thorne for the murders, and he was undoubtedly guilty of them. But they didn’t have the whole story. They saw it as a case of domestic violence escalating to a brutal, tragic end. They didn't know about the motive that drove the violence. They didn’t know about the missing piece.

That’s why the spirits weren't at rest. Their killer was caught, but their final purpose was unfulfilled. The thing they had died to protect was still hidden, still in danger.

Caleb’s ghostly apparition in the living room replayed in Leo’s mind. He hadn’t just been pointing them back to the apartment. He had been pointing them to a specific place. To a secret. A secret the police, with all their forensic tools and investigation, would never find.

They were the only ones the spirits could communicate with. They were the only ones who knew what to look for.

“We have to go back,” Leo said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. It was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

Kiwi met his gaze, her own fear warring with a new, grim determination. “They need us to find it,” she agreed, her voice barely a whisper. “Before he can. Or before whatever is in that box is lost forever.”

Their roles had shifted. They were no longer just victims of a haunting. They were messengers for the dead, unwilling paranormal investigators tasked with solving the true crime that the police knew nothing about. Their path forward was clear, and it led directly back into the heart of the nightmare: Apartment 1000L.