Search Results: 'Dana Baker'

The Last Postcard

Words: 2897 · Source Novel:: Ember's Reckoning

Elena Taylor receives a cryptic postcard from her brother, Mark, who is backpacking through the Baltic nation of Verland. When his scheduled flight home passes without arrival, she contacts the U.S. embassy, only to be met with bureaucratic disinterest. She flies to Verland's capital, Portvika, and reports Mark missing. Local police inspector Viktors Kalnins takes her statement with weary indifference, hinting at a backlog of similar cases. Elena rents a room in a bleak Soviet-era hotel and begins her own search, visiting the hostel where Mark last stayed. There, she finds a torn receipt from a local construction firm, "BaltiKonstrukt," and a photograph of Mark standing beside a man who later introduces himself as Dana Baker—a smooth-talking American expat who runs a claims management office. Baker offers sympathy but warns Elena that Verland is "not a place for outsiders asking questions."