Chapter 7
Police arrived within minutes.
They searched the street, but no one had seen who threw the brick.
The dark SUV had not returned.
An officer stayed outside our house while another collected the note.
Lily sat beneath the kitchen table with her hands over her ears.
The broken window reminded her of the smashed cupcake.
Everything frightened her now.
I crawled beneath the table.
“Would you like to build a blanket fort upstairs?”
“Can Grandma get inside?”
“No.”
“Can the man with the bird ring?”
“No.”
I wanted my answer to be true.
Mark came into the kitchen.
He looked exhausted.
“The officer wants us to stay somewhere else tonight.”
“Where?”
“They can arrange a hotel under another name.”
Lily shook her head.
“No hotel.”
I understood.
The wedding reception had happened at a hotel.
“We’ll go to Natalie’s house,” I said. “No one expects us there while she’s away.”
Police escorted us.
Thomas went to the hospital to see Rebecca.
Mark wanted to go with him, but I asked him to stay with Lily until she fell asleep.
He agreed.
At Natalie’s house, we checked every window.
Mark pushed furniture against the back door.
Lily chose to sleep in Natalie’s bedroom because it smelled like her aunt’s perfume.
I lay beside her until her breathing became steady.
When I returned downstairs, Mark was reading the copied trust documents.
“Thomas sent these,” he said.
“Anything useful?”
“The DNA clause is real.”
“Why would your grandmother include it?”
“She suspected Diane had lied about something else.”
“What?”
“My birth.”
I sat across from him.
He showed me a paragraph written in dense legal language.
The trust identified Thomas Reed’s biological children as beneficiaries.
Before any money could be released, their relationship to Thomas had to be confirmed.
“If you aren’t his biological son, what happens?”
“Rebecca becomes the only beneficiary.”
“And if Rebecca died?”
“The trust would go to a medical safety charity.”
“So Diane never gets it.”
“Not directly.”
“But if she controlled you, she could pressure you to give her money.”
Mark nodded.
“That’s what she expected.”
“Why would she fear your DNA result?”
“Because she knows Thomas may not be my biological father.”
He stared at the photograph.
“I remember him as my dad. Does biology matter?”
“Not to your memories.”
“It matters to the trust.”
His phone rang.
Thomas was calling from the hospital.
Rebecca had agreed to speak with us through a video call.
Her face appeared on the screen.
She was thirty-four, with Mark’s dark eyes and Diane’s sharp cheekbones.
A bruise marked her temple.
Mark forgot how to breathe.
Rebecca stared at him too.
“You look like the pictures,” she whispered.
“What pictures?”
“Diane showed me photographs of you.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“She wanted me to know what I would destroy if I came forward.”
Mark’s expression tightened.
“You wouldn’t destroy anything.”
“She said you had a wife and daughter. She said Thomas’s accusations would bring reporters and police into your life.”
“That happened because she kidnapped you.”
“Graham kidnapped me.”
“With her help.”
Rebecca looked away.
“She opened the cellar door for him.”
Thomas appeared beside her bed.
His eyes were red.
Mark asked Rebecca what Graham meant by fixing the trust problem.
“He needs the original safety reports,” she said. “Your grandfather hid them before he died.”
“What do they have to do with the trust?”
“The reports are listed as a trust asset.”
I frowned.
“How can documents be an asset?”
“They contain evidence against people who are still wealthy and powerful,” Rebecca said. “Graham believes someone will pay millions to destroy them.”
“Where are they?”
“That’s what he wanted me to tell him.”
“Do you know?”
“No. But Diane thinks you do.”
Mark stared at the screen.
“I didn’t know the trust existed yesterday.”
“She doesn’t believe that.”
Thomas leaned closer.
“Tell him about the photograph.”
Rebecca hesitated.
Then she held up a photocopy of the picture found beneath the cupcake.
The man beside Diane was Thomas.
But another person had been cropped from the original.
A young man stood on Diane’s other side.
He had blond hair and a silver bird ring.
Graham Mercer.
“The date was six months after I was supposedly dead,” Rebecca said.
Mark looked at the handwritten words on our copy.
REAL FATHER.
“Which man does that refer to?”
“No one knows,” Thomas said.
Rebecca shook her head.
“Diane knows.”
Mark’s face became still.
“Is Graham my biological father?”
Rebecca did not answer.
Neither did Thomas.
Finally, Thomas said, “It is possible.”
Mark stood and walked away from the phone.
I followed him into the hallway.
“You’re still the same person,” I said.
“My mother may have had a child with the man who bought my sister.”
“We don’t know that.”
“She lied about everything else.”
He pressed both hands against the wall.
“I don’t care about the money. I care that every answer creates another lie.”
I touched his back.
“Then stop chasing Diane’s version of the truth.”
“What does that mean?”
“Take the DNA test.”
He turned around.
“The note threatened Lily.”
“They threatened her because they know the result will hurt them.”
“I won’t risk our daughter.”
“Neither will I. We’ll keep her protected. But if fear controls our choices, Diane is still controlling us.”
Mark looked toward the bedroom where Lily slept.
“What if I’m Graham’s son?”
“Then Thomas is still the father you remember.”
He lowered his head.
“And Graham?”
“Is a criminal who shares some DNA with you. Nothing more.”
The police arranged for Mark’s sample to be collected secretly that night.
Thomas submitted his at the hospital.
Rebecca submitted hers too.
A laboratory agreed to rush the analysis.
Only the lead detective knew the samples had been taken.
At least, that was what we believed.
At three in the morning, an alarm sounded downstairs.
Mark grabbed a fireplace poker.
I called the police and locked myself in the bedroom with Lily.
Footsteps moved through the house.
Then Mark shouted.
I heard a struggle.
Something heavy struck the floor.
I opened the bedroom door just enough to see the hallway.
Mark was wrestling with a masked man near the stairs.
The intruder raised a metal bar.
Thomas appeared behind him.
He seized the man’s arm and pulled him backward.
Police rushed through the front door seconds later.
They forced the intruder onto the floor.
Thomas leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
Mark stared at him.
“How did you know we were here?”
“Claire texted me the address.”
“I did not.”
Everyone went silent.
Thomas showed us his phone.
A message had been sent from my number shortly after midnight.
We are staying at Natalie’s. Please come.
My phone was still upstairs.
The message did not appear in my sent history.
Someone had spoofed my number.
The intruder laughed from the floor.
One officer removed his mask.
It was the young man who had pretended to be a catering employee at the wedding.
Kyle.
Except his name was not Kyle.
He was Graham Mercer Jr.
Rebecca’s adoptive brother.
He looked at Mark.
“My father says you have something that belongs to him.”
“I have nothing.”
Graham Jr. smiled.
“Your daughter does.”
I rushed upstairs.
Lily was awake.
She stood beside the bed holding the pink ring Rebecca had given her.
The center had popped open again.
But this time I noticed the plastic jewel was thicker than it should have been.
Inside it was a tiny memory card.
May you like
Rebecca had hidden more than a note.
She had given Lily the evidence everyone was searching for.
