TOWARD THE DISTANCE Chapter 17

Cade was on his feet before the sentence was finished.

"Which flight? When? Where was it going?"

"The witness believes it was a flight to Norway. But we should note — the passenger manifest for every flight that day doesn't include anyone by the name of Elena. It's possible the witness is mistaken. The woman they saw may simply have looked similar —"

"Don't dismiss it," Cade said, edge creeping into his voice. "One lead. That's all I need. Which flight specifically?"

"A direct flight to Oslo, departing the morning after you reported her missing."

Cade booked the ticket before he hung up. He didn't even change his clothes — just grabbed his passport and drove to the airport.

Getting a visa took longer than he wanted. The flight itself felt endless. And then there was the matter of finding her in a country where he didn't speak the language, in a city where no one knew him, with nothing but a name and a hunch.

Through the Chinese embassy in Oslo and local police contacts, he eventually traced Elena to a small rental property outside a quiet coastal town.

He showed up at the door three days after landing in Norway, breathing hard, still wearing the same wrinkled shirt from the flight.

The door opened. An older woman — blonde, kind-faced, clearly the landlord — looked at him with immediate suspicion.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Elena," Cade said. "She's my wife. We had a… a misunderstanding. I just want to talk to her."

The woman studied him for a long moment. Then she shook her head, gently but firmly.

"There's no one here by that name."

"Her English name — NING. She might be using —"

"My tenant's name is Wren Faraway. Not Elena. Not NING. I think you have the wrong person."

Wren Faraway.

Cade had never heard that name in his life.

"Are you certain?" he asked, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. "Could you double-check?"

The landlord's expression shifted from polite to annoyed. "I know my own tenant's name, sir. You have the wrong address."

She started to close the door.

Cade pulled out a handful of cash — everything he had in his wallet — and held it up. "This is just a tip. For your trouble. Can you at least tell me when your current tenant moved in? Whether she's had any visitors?"

The landlord took the money but offered nothing in return. A shrug. A blank stare. Nothing.

Cade left the property with nothing. No confirmation, no denial, no trail to follow. Elena — or Wren Faraway, or whoever she had become — had vanished so completely that even standing on her doorstep, he couldn't prove she existed.

He flew back to China the next day, hollow and defeated.

From that point forward, Cade stopped going to work entirely. He locked himself in the house and refused to come out.

His assistant called every day with updates. Cade answered with shorter and shorter responses.

Day one: "Any news on Elena?"

"No. Keep looking."

Day three: "Still nothing. The missing person notices are up, but —"

"Keep going."

Day seven: "Cade… are you okay?"

"…Yeah."

Day ten: "…"

"…"

The assistant recognized the silence for what it was. He quietly called Cade's parents.