Chapter 3 - The Son They Buried AliveI watched the footage three times.
Same car.
Same plate.
Same impossible driver.
My father.
Victor Vale.
Dead to the world since his stroke.
Paralyzed from the waist down.
Barely able to speak.
Or so every doctor, nurse, and family member had told me for thirteen years.
Petr stared at the screen.
“Could be someone wearing his face.”
“It isn't.”
“How do you know?”
“Because my father has a habit.”
“What habit?”
“He taps twice on the door before entering a room.”
Petr went silent.
The footage showed the man exiting the vehicle.
He paused.
Taped twice on the roof.
Then entered the house.
Exactly how my father had done it my entire childhood.
Ellie was watching me.
“Mommy said not to trust doctors.”
I looked at her.
“What else did she say?”
“That grandpa is awake.”
I felt something close around my throat.
“How long?”
“Mommy said thirteen years.”
That meant the stroke had been an act.
Thirteen years of deception.
Thirteen years of manipulating me.
My father's own son.
I turned toward Petr.
“Lock the estate.”
“Already done.”
“No calls in or out.”
“What about your board?”
“Forget the board.”
Petr looked at me carefully.
“Damon, what are we doing?”
I looked at the red envelope.
“We're finding out why my father lied to me.”
I opened it.
Inside was a single sheet.
Three names.
Victor Vale.
Charles Rennick.
Adrian Vale.
Underneath them was a fourth name.
Mara Bell.
Then a sentence.
ONE OF THEM IS NOT WHO YOU THINK.
I heard a faint clicking sound.
From the hallway.
I raised my pistol.
Ellie grabbed my wrist.
“Don't.”
“Why?”
“Because he wants you to.”
The hallway lights flickered.
A man stepped into view.
Adrian.
My brother smiled.
He wore the same navy suit he had worn during dinner the previous Sunday.
He looked completely relaxed.
“Damon.”
I aimed the pistol at his chest.
“You're going to explain everything.”
He glanced at Ellie.
His smile vanished.
“You shouldn't have brought her here.”
“She was already here.”
Adrian's eyes shifted toward the hidden room.
Then back to me.
“Where's Mara?”
“Gone.”
Something inside him cracked.
For the first time in my life, my brother looked afraid.
I stepped forward.
“Who is Ellie?”
He said nothing.
“Who is her father?”
Still nothing.
I raised the pistol.
“Last chance.”
Adrian whispered, “Your son.”
The room went still.
“You knew?”
“I knew before you did.”
“Where is he?”
Adrian swallowed.
“Dead.”
Ellie gasped.
I looked at her.
She wasn't crying.
She was staring at Adrian with a strange, terrible calm.
“That's not what Mommy said.”
Adrian looked at her.
“She lied.”
“No.”
Ellie's voice trembled for the first time.
“She said Daddy would come home.”
Adrian's face went white.
I noticed.
The fear.
The recognition.
The timing.
He wasn't afraid because Ellie was the child of a dead man.
He was afraid because Ellie knew something she wasn't supposed to know.
I grabbed Adrian by the collar.
“Where is my son?”
My brother whispered, “Buried.”
“Where?”
“St. Matthew's.”
I released him.
He stumbled backward.
Petr immediately stepped forward.
“I'll get the records.”
“Don't.”
I stared at Adrian.
“You're coming with me.”
We drove to St. Matthew's cemetery under a sky so black it made the city's lights look sick.
Adrian sat beside me in silence.
When we reached the family section, he stopped.
“Here.”
A granite marker stood beneath an old oak.
JONATHAN ELIAS VALE
1999–2020
Twenty-one years old.
My son, allegedly.
Except the dates made no sense.
Mara disappeared when I was twenty-two.
If Jonathan had been born in 1999, I would have been eighteen when he was conceived.
Impossible.
I turned toward Adrian.
“You're lying.”
He stared at the grave.
“No.”
“Then explain the dates.”
He said nothing.
I knelt beside the stone.
Something felt wrong.
The granite looked new.
Too new.
I brushed mud away from the base.
There was no burial seam.
No settled earth.
No flowers.
No marker from the cemetery registry.
Nothing.
I stood.
“This grave is fake.”
Adrian looked at me.
“No.”
“Then why isn't there a burial?”
He whispered, “Because he was never buried here.”
My pulse exploded.
“Where is he?”
Adrian closed his eyes.
Then he spoke.
“Your father has him.”
I grabbed him.
“What does that mean?”
Before he could answer, a gunshot cracked through the cemetery.
Adrian jerked in my hands.
Blood spread across his white shirt.
He collapsed.
Petr drew his weapon.
I dropped behind the stone marker.
Another bullet struck the granite inches from my face.
Then a third.
The shooter was somewhere in the trees.
I looked at Adrian.
He was dying.
I crawled toward him.
“Adrian!”
His eyes opened.
“Room... seventeen.”
“What?”
He coughed blood.
“At the old terminal.”
“Which terminal?”
He grabbed my wrist.
“Your first one.”
His grip weakened.
Then he whispered something else.
Not about my son.
Not about Mara.
About me.
“Damon... your father didn't fake his stroke to hide from the police.”
I leaned closer.
“Why did he do it?”
Adrian smiled with the last strength he had.
“To hide from you.”
His hand fell.
And from somewhere in the darkness, a woman's voice whispered:
“Good.”
I looked up.
May you like
Mara stood between the trees.
And behind her was a man who looked exactly like me.
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