The scent of antiseptic still lingered on Amadeo's skin. Bandages wrapped around his ribs pressed against his bruised bones with every breath, a constant reminder of the crash. But the real pain wasn't physical. It throbbed deeper, quieter — in the absence of her. Elle.
Levi Wilder sat behind his desk, flipping through the file for the third time, though he'd memorized every word. His jaw clenched as he listened to Amadeo's account again, this time with more detail — not just about the crash, but about Elle. The way she moved like a ghost, smiled like she was trying to forget something,like she had nothing left to lose.
When Amadeo finished speaking, his voice hoarse, he looked at Levi with eyes hollowed out by worry. "Please," he said, "you have to find her. No matter what it takes."
Levi looked up from the file, quiet for a long beat. Then he closed it gently and said, "We'll find her. But you're in no shape to help us yet. Go home. Rest. Heal. Once you're better, you can join the investigation."
Amadeo wanted to argue, but his legs trembled beneath him. Defeat weighed him down as he nodded slowly. "You'll call me the second you find anything?"
"First call I'll make."
Three days passed.
The sky bled orange as evening fell, casting long shadows across the cluttered detective board in Levi's office. Photographs. Maps. Pins and red strings — none of which led anywhere. Levi stood silently, a cigar burning between his fingers, the embers reflecting off his eyes. He was thinking about Elle. About how someone could disappear so thoroughly. He'd seen runaways. Witness protection cases. People changing names. But this... this was something else.
The door flew open with a loud bang. Levi didn't flinch.
Without turning around, he muttered, "What happened? Did someone die?"
Gasping for air, Dylan Ward barely managed, "There's nothing."
Levi raised an eyebrow, still facing the board. "What?"
"The girl. Elle. There's… nothing, sir." Dylan stepped forward, voice shaking. "It's like she just—appeared. And now she's gone. No parents. No address. No school records. No date of birth. Nothing."
Levi turned slowly, the cigar forgotten between his fingers. "What rubbish. Everyone has something. No one's a complete blank."
"I thought the same. But sir, I'm telling you... there's nothing. It's like she never existed."
Levi brushed past Dylan without another word and stormed down the hallway, his footsteps echoing sharply against the tiled floor. He burst into the records room and began scanning through files and databases himself.
"Run it again," he ordered the officer on the computer. "Every source. Government. Medical. Education. Anything that would require a legal name."
They tried.
Nothing.
The screen glared back with blank spaces, errors, and missing entries. No digital footprint. No paper trail. No photographs beyond what Amadeo had taken on his phone — and even those looked strange now, like Elle had been half in shadow, like her presence had never quite belonged in the frame.
Levi stood motionless, the room spinning quietly around him. He had chased criminals across continents, uncovered drug rings and human traffickers, but never had he seen this.
"Call Amadeo," he finally said, voice tight. "Tell him to come in. Now."
The station was quiet when Amadeo arrived.His right hand was in a plaster cast, and his forehead was wrapped in a bandage. He hadn't even taken the time to throw on a jacket. His shirt clung to his back, soaked with sweat. His heart had been pounding since Dylan's call.
"Did you find her?" he asked the moment he stepped inside, eyes darting from one officer to the next. "Is she okay? Is she—"
Dylan stepped forward, placing a firm hand on Amadeo's shoulder. "Come with me.Mr. Levi will explain."
The silence in Levi's office was thick, stretched taut by uncertainty. Amadeo saw the board, now filled with strands leading to nowhere, pictures that seemed hollow, and a single name circled again and again: Elle.
Levi didn't mince words. "She's gone."
Amadeo's face crumpled. "Gone? As in missing?"
Levi shook his head. "No. I mean... gone. Erased."
He threw down a stack of reports on the desk, each one stamped with the same result: No records found.
"We can't find anything. Birth certificate. School. Medical history. Passport. It's like she never existed, Amadeo."
Amadeo's hands shook as he picked up one of the files, reading the empty spaces, the cold language of the system refusing to acknowledge the girl he had held,cared, bled for.
"That's not possible," he whispered. "She's real. I knew her. I with her.Even the driver saw her.The hospital--"
Levi's expression didn't change, but there was something unreadable in his eyes. "I believe you. But I need you to understand what this means. If she's real, then someone made her disappear — not just physically, but from the system. That takes power. Planning. Or…"
He hesitated.
"Or what?" Amadeo demanded.
"Or she never wanted to be found in the first place."
The words fell between them like a weight.
Amadeo slumped into the chair, the breath knocked out of him. "No," he whispered. "I know her she won't just vanish she would've told me—she would've."
Levi looked at him for a long moment before saying quietly, "Then we find out why she vanished."