CHAPTER 10: THE JOURNAL OF LIES
The journal felt strangely warm.
Emily frowned as she lifted it from the floor.
It wasn't old enough to have been buried for decades.
The leather was worn, but the stitching remained intact.
Someone had cared for it.
Recently.
Marcus looked through the reinforced window.
The corridor outside was empty again.
The wheelchair had vanished.
No sound of wheels.
No retreating footsteps.
Nothing.
It was as though it had never been there.
Arthur stared at the journal without touching it.
His hands trembled.
"I burned this."
Emily looked up.
"You just said you buried it."
Arthur closed his eyes.
"I buried it first."
"When I realized someone had found it..."
"I dug it up and burned every page."
Marcus frowned.
"Then how is this possible?"
Arthur answered quietly.
"I don't know."
Emily opened the cover.
The first page contained no dates.
No names.
Only a handwritten sentence.
Truth is never erased. It is only rewritten until someone remembers differently.
Daniel slowly exhaled.
"That's not a diary."
"It's a warning."
Emily turned the page.
Every sheet was filled with observations rather than memories.
No emotions.
No personal reflections.
Only facts.
March 8
Marcus forgot the piano lesson.
He never took piano lessons.
April 17
Ava insists she has always hated strawberries.
Yesterday she loved them.
May 2
Mrs. Blackwell says this is our first summer at the lake.
We have spent every summer there.
Marcus stared.
"What is this?"
Arthur answered almost immediately.
"Memory drift."
Emily looked confused.
Arthur continued.
"Victor believed memories could be manipulated."
"He wrote down every inconsistency he noticed."
Daniel flipped ahead.
The entries became increasingly disturbing.
September 11
Staff remembers two gardeners.
Payroll lists three.
October 3
Portrait in east hallway changed overnight.
Only I noticed.
October 12
Child in family photograph removed.
Everyone insists she was never there.
Marcus felt the room spin.
His heartbeat echoed in his ears.
Someone hadn't merely hidden the truth.
Someone had altered people's recollections so thoroughly that contradictions no longer seemed strange.
Near the middle of the journal, several pages had been torn out.
Emily carefully counted the gaps.
"Twelve missing."
Arthur nodded.
"They're the pages I burned."
Marcus looked at him.
"What was on them?"
Arthur remained silent.
Emily closed the journal.
"No more half-truths."
"If we're risking our lives together..."
"...everything starts now."
Arthur looked at each of them.
Then he nodded.
"I'll tell you."
Twenty-two years earlier...
The Blackwell estate fire had not started by accident.
Neither had Isabella caused it.
Marcus looked up sharply.
"What?"
Arthur spoke slowly, choosing every word with care.
"The official report blamed faulty wiring."
"It was false."
"The rumors blamed Isabella."
"Also false."
Emily leaned forward.
"Then who?"
Arthur answered with visible reluctance.
"Victor."
Silence.
Marcus frowned.
"Why would he burn down my family's house?"
Arthur shook his head.
"Not to kill anyone."
"To steal someone."
Arthur pointed to the photograph of the three rescued children.
"Evelyn."
"She wasn't a Blackwell by blood."
Marcus blinked.
"She wasn't?"
Arthur nodded.
"Your parents adopted her quietly after an international investigation."
"They feared someone would come looking."
Emily asked,
"Looking for what?"
Arthur hesitated.
"For what she had seen."
Daniel frowned.
"Seen where?"
Arthur rubbed his injured shoulder.
"I never learned the full story."
"I only knew Evelyn witnessed something as a child."
"Something powerful people wanted buried."
Marcus crossed his arms.
"So Victor rescued her?"
Arthur's expression darkened.
"That's what I believed."
Emily caught the wording immediately.
"Believed?"
Arthur nodded.
"I've spent twenty years wondering whether he rescued her..."
"...or kidnapped her."
A sudden vibration interrupted them.
Marcus's phone.
Unknown number.
Again.
This time it wasn't a video.
Only an address.
Riverside Observatory
12:30 A.M.
Beneath it was one sentence.
Bring the journal. Come without police.
Emily looked at Marcus.
"Trap."
Daniel nodded.
"Obviously."
Arthur surprised them.
"We're going."
Marcus stared.
"You can't be serious."
Arthur looked directly at him.
"Victor doesn't ask twice."
Emily studied the message again.
Something bothered her.
She enlarged the image.
At the bottom...
Barely visible beneath the address...
Was a watermark.
A faded emblem.
A crescent moon enclosed within a circle.
The same crescent shape Arthur had pointed out on the rescued girl's wrist in the old fire footage.
Emily's pulse quickened.
She turned another page of the journal.
There...
Sketched hastily in blue ink...
Was the exact same symbol.
Below it, Victor had written only five words.
They always mark the witnesses.
Emily slowly closed the journal.
For the first time since this nightmare began, she wasn't thinking about Isabella.
She was thinking about Evelyn.
If Victor had started a fire to reach one frightened child...
If Isabella had spent twenty-two years searching for that same child...
Then Evelyn wasn't just another missing person.
She was the answer to a question none of them fully understood yet.
Outside, the hotel's fire alarms finally fell silent.
In the sudden stillness, a distant church bell rang once.
It was 12:15 a.m.
May you like
They had exactly fifteen minutes to decide whether to walk into Victor's trap...
Or risk losing the only lead that had survived twenty-two years of lies.
