Chapter 4 - The Dead Woman's PhoneI slapped Daniel.
The sound cracked through the room.
He didn't defend himself.
He didn't even look angry.
He simply stared at the floor.
"My mother?"
Eleanor closed her eyes.
"Your mother loved someone she shouldn't have."
"Your father?"
"Yes."
My stomach churned.
My mother had died when I was eleven.
For years, my father had said she'd suffered complications from pneumonia.
I'd believed him.
I'd mourned her.
I'd built an entire childhood around a lie.
"Did my father know?"
"Yes," Eleanor said.
"Then why did they stay together?"
"Because your father knew what your mother's affair had uncovered."
I stared at the ledger.
"What?"
Eleanor pointed to several coded payments.
"Your father's company wasn't just losing money."
"What was it doing?"
"Moving people."
I frowned.
"People?"
"Immigration records. Adoption records. Witnesses. Anyone who became inconvenient."
I felt sick.
"That's impossible."
Daniel spoke softly.
"Unfortunately, it isn't."
He walked to the window.
"Mara found out."
"That's why she disappeared?"
"Yes."
"And Julia?"
"She found bank records."
"Rebecca?"
"She found the ledger."
I looked at him.
"Then why are you marrying women who discover this?"
His eyes met mine.
"Because every time Mother thinks I know where the evidence is, she watches me."
Eleanor said nothing.
I turned to her.
"You've been investigating your own son?"
"I've been trying to stop him."
Daniel laughed bitterly.
"You've spent twenty years trying to destroy me."
"Because you were becoming like your father."
"No."
"Yes."
I felt like a stranger inside my own wedding dress.
Then something buzzed.
Daniel's phone.
He looked at it.
His face went pale.
I saw the notification.
There was no contact name.
Just a number.
The message contained one sentence.
SHE KNOWS ABOUT THE CELLAR.
Daniel quickly locked the screen.
"What cellar?"
He looked at me.
"Nothing."
I grabbed his phone.
He tried to stop me.
Too late.
Another message arrived.
TELL HER THE TRUTH BEFORE SHE OPENS IT.
Then a photograph appeared.
It showed me.
Standing in our backyard.
Taken from inside the house.
I stared at it.
"Someone is watching us."
Eleanor whispered:
"Not someone."
She looked toward the floor.
"Someone who has been inside this house for years."
That afternoon, while Daniel was downstairs arguing with his mother, I found the cellar door.
It was hidden behind a bookcase.
The brass key opened it.
I turned the handle.
The door groaned.
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And from somewhere beneath the house...
I heard a woman screaming.
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