Chapter 8 - The CribThe One Thing Claire Left Behind Wasn't an Accident

We made it out through the rear tunnel exit.

By sunrise, we were driving back toward the city.

I couldn't stop thinking about the crib.

Claire sat beside me in silence.

Hope slept in the back.

Victor followed in another vehicle.

"You knew," I said.

Claire looked at me.

"About the crib?"

"That something was hidden inside."

"I suspected."

"You left it."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I knew you'd never throw away your daughter's crib."

I swallowed.

"You used my attachment to her."

"I used your one remaining good instinct."

I had no answer.

We reached the house just after seven.

The police had not come.

No neighbors stood outside.

Everything looked normal.

That scared me more than the SUVs.

The front door opened easily.

Inside, my house looked exactly as I'd left it.

Except for one thing.

A white envelope sat on the stairs.

Claire picked it up.

My name.

Again.

She opened it.

Inside was a single sentence.

You should have listened when I told you not to look.

Claire turned pale.

We ran upstairs.

The nursery was untouched.

The crib remained against the wall.

I knelt beside it.

The mattress felt heavier than it should.

I lifted it.

Nothing.

Claire crouched beside me.

"Check underneath."

I turned the crib over.

There was a small metal compartment attached to the frame.

I stared at it.

"How did I never see that?"

"Because it only opens from the inside."

"Inside what?"

Claire pointed to the bottom rail.

There was a tiny slot.

I pulled out the key from my pocket.

The one I had found in the train locker.

It fit.

The compartment opened.

Inside was a ledger.

Not a copy.

The original.

Page after page of names.

Payments.

Judges.

Police officers.

Businessmen.

Politicians.

And one name appeared again and again.

Margaret Hale.

I looked at Claire.

"She lied."

Claire nodded.

"She did."

Victor grabbed the ledger.

He turned pages quickly.

His face drained of color.

"What's wrong?"

He pointed.

At the bottom of one page was my father's signature.

Next to it was another name.

Samantha Reed.

I stared.

"Samantha?"

Victor shook his head.

"No."

"What?"

"That's not Samantha."

I looked at him.

"The woman you know as Samantha isn't Samantha Reed."

I felt sick.

"Then who is she?"

Victor stared at the page.

"Her real name is Emily Vale."

I looked at Claire.

"Vale?"

Claire's face went white.

"That was my mother's maiden name."

Everything stopped.

Hope began crying in the other room.

Claire stood.

"That's impossible."

Victor said,

"Your mother didn't disappear."

"Then where is she?"

He looked at the ledger.

"She has been right beside Daniel for nine months."

I thought of Samantha.

Her smile.

Her perfume.

Her apartment.

Her messages.

Her lies.

But something bothered me.

"Why would she target me?"

Claire looked at the ledger.

Then she whispered,

"Because your father left something else."

"What?"

"A second account."

"Where?"

Claire turned the page.

A bank number was written beneath Samantha's name.

Beside it were three words.

Daniel is beneficiary.

I stared at the page.

Then the house alarm suddenly began screaming.

Someone was inside.

May you like

My Family Inherited Millions and Left Me a Ruined House. Four Months Lat...

The lawyer’s office fell silent as my grandmother’s will was read, and I watched my family inherit millions while I received nothi...

A Desperate Mother Begged a Billionaire for a Job to Feed Her Two Childr...

I was stranded on a lonely Arizona highway with two starving children, a pair of ruined suitcases, and no way to reach our destina...

I Saved the Mafia Boss’s Baby from a Dumpster, but He Threw Me in Jail f...

The first thing I noticed when I opened the dumpster behind the Valente mansion was a tiny blue hand sticking out from beneath a f...

Someone who knew exactly where we were.

And someone who had just discovered we had the ledger.