Chapter 7 - The Boy Next Door
I do not remember leaving the cabin.
I remember snow striking my face. I remember Detective Bennett forcing Father into handcuffs while Mother followed us to the vehicle.
I remember Marcus speaking through my phone.
“Bring Megan to the birthday house.”
“You do not have Megan.”
“No. But you will.”
“If you touch Lily or Noah, I will kill you.”
He laughed softly.
“Father used to say that anger made you predictable.”
The call ended.
Police recovered Tessa and Sophie near the frozen lake. The trunk had not been attached to the vehicle Marcus showed us. It was another recording designed to divide our attention.
Tessa insisted on coming with us despite the wound in her shoulder.
“He will use the basement tunnel,” she said. “There is another exit beneath Mother’s greenhouse.”
Mother looked at her daughter.
“You knew?”
“I found it when I was fourteen.”
“And you told Marcus.”
“I told him everything back then.”
Tessa’s shame did not excuse what she had done to Lily, but it explained how Marcus had learned to control her.
We reached Mrs. Harper’s street before dawn.
Her front door stood open.
A birthday balloon had been tied to the mailbox.
Inside, furniture had been overturned. Blood marked the hallway wall, but there were no bodies.
I heard Lily crying upstairs.
I ran.
Her bedroom door had been wired shut. Detective Bennett cut the cable while I shouted Lily’s name.
She was alone inside the closet, holding Noah’s sweater.
I pulled her into my arms.
“Where is Noah?”
“Uncle Marcus took him.”
“Where is Mrs. Harper?”
“She tried to stop him.”
We found Mrs. Harper unconscious behind the kitchen door. Paramedics treated a head wound while she struggled to tell us what happened.
“Marcus knew Noah’s real name,” she whispered.
“What is it?”
“Benjamin Carter.”
My son.
Megan had chosen Mrs. Harper because she had once worked as a nurse at Hawthorne. When she discovered the illegal transfers, she helped Megan move the baby before Marcus could find him.
Mrs. Harper raised Noah as her foster grandson and stayed beside my home so Megan could know her children were near me.
“Why did you not tell me?”
“Megan believed you signed the commitment papers.”
“She thought I betrayed her.”
“She was afraid Richard had made you part of it.”
My father had built his power from mistrust. He did not need everyone to love him. He only needed them to doubt one another.
Lily held my face between her small hands.
“Daddy, Mommy said you would find us.”
“Where did you hear her?”
“On Uncle Marcus’s phone.”
“What else did she say?”
Lily closed her eyes, trying to remember.
“She said the cake has the key.”
The birthday cake remained on the table at Mother’s mansion.
When we returned, most of the decorations still hung from the trees. The pastel balloons had begun sagging in the early morning cold.
The cake had been cut during the party, but one section near the bottom remained untouched.
Inside the cardboard base was a small metal key and a handwritten note.
Daniel,
The archive beneath the patio is only the first level. Richard built another room below it. The children’s records are there.
If Lily finds this, tell her I never stopped trying to come home.
Megan
Tessa stared at the note.
“She planned for Lily to find the key.”
“She did not plan for you to bruise her.”
Tessa lowered her eyes.
“No.”
She did not ask forgiveness.
That was the first honest thing she had done.
We entered the hidden passage again. The metal key opened a floor panel beneath the empty room.
A ladder descended into darkness.
At the bottom, we found hundreds of files arranged by birth date.
Each file contained a photograph, a false death certificate, and an adoption payment.
Noah’s file was missing.
Megan’s voice came through a speaker.
“Daniel, Marcus brought me to the old surgical room.”
A monitor activated.
Megan was strapped to a hospital bed.
Noah stood beside her, crying.
Marcus held a syringe near the boy’s neck.
“Bring Mother,” he said. “She knows how to unlock the final ledger.”
Mother moved toward the screen.
Marcus smiled.
“And bring Tessa. Lily deserves to see what her aunt was really protecting.”
The feed changed.
A second hospital bed appeared beside Megan.
Someone lay beneath a white sheet.
The person’s hand hung over the edge.
May you like
My wedding ring was on the finger.
Continue to the next part: A second man wearing Daniel’s wedding ring suggests Marcus has prepared a replacement for more than one member of the family.
