Chapter 10
Police surrounded the Walker lake house before midnight.
I was ordered to stay back.
David refused to leave my side.
Detective Collins entered with the tactical team.
For twenty minutes, we heard nothing.
Then an officer ran toward us.
“They found Catherine.”
I jumped out of the car.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
Relief almost knocked me down.
“Where?”
“Basement.”
My mother was carried outside wrapped in a blanket.
Her wrists were bruised from restraints.
She saw me.
“Sarah.”
I rushed to her.
Then stopped.
Because I remembered Robert’s video.
Her crimes.
Her forged transfers.
Her involvement with Evelyn.
“Did Evelyn do this?”
Catherine started crying.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She learned I kept copies.”
“You helped her for years.”
Catherine closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“You helped target Lily?”
“No.”
I stared at her.
“Dad said you planned to challenge the trust.”
“Years ago.”
“So that makes it better?”
“No.”
She looked broken.
“I wanted the money. Then Lily was born.”
My anger sharpened.
“And suddenly you developed a conscience?”
“Not suddenly.”
She cried harder.
“Robert confronted me. He showed me what we had become.”
“What you had become.”
“Yes.”
I waited.
“I stopped helping Evelyn.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
“The year Dad died.”
She nodded.
“I tried to warn him.”
“Did you give Evelyn the drug that killed him?”
“No.”
“Did you know she had it?”
Catherine looked at me.
“Yes.”
My throat tightened.
“You could have stopped her.”
“I tried.”
“But you didn’t go to police.”
“I was afraid I would go to prison too.”
There it was.
Fear protecting selfishness again.
I stepped away.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you.”
“I understand.”
Police brought another person from the house.
Evelyn.
Her hands were cuffed.
She looked furious.
“Sarah!”
I stared at her.
“You really don’t know when to stop.”
“This belongs to my family!”
“Lily is your family.”
Her expression hardened.
“She is Robert Mitchell’s blood.”
“And David is Robert’s son.”
Evelyn laughed.
“You still believe that?”
David stepped closer.
“What does that mean?”
She smiled.
“Robert wasn’t your father.”
Everything stopped.
Not another secret.
Not again.
Detective Collins shook his head.
“Save it for your attorney.”
But David stared at her.
“Who was my father?”
Evelyn’s smile widened.
“You think I spent decades fighting over a trust because Robert had an affair with some woman?”
David went pale.
“Answer me.”
She looked toward Catherine.
My mother whispered, “Don’t.”
That was enough.
David turned toward her.
“You know.”
Catherine closed her eyes.
“David…”
“Who was my father?”
Before she could answer, Laura Bell arrived holding a folder recovered from the lake house.
“We have DNA records.”
Nobody moved.
Laura looked at David.
“Robert Mitchell was not your biological father.”
David’s shoulders dropped.
“Then Lily doesn’t qualify for the trust.”
“Yes, she does.”
I frowned.
“How?”
Laura opened the report.
“Because Robert Mitchell was Lily’s biological grandfather.”
“That makes no sense.”
She looked at me.
“Through Sarah.”
My breath stopped.
“But earlier records said Henry was my father.”
“Those records were forged.”
Evelyn began laughing.
Catherine cried.
I stared at my mother.
“Robert was my biological father?”
“Yes.”
That meant Lily qualified through me.
David looked almost relieved.
Then his expression changed.
“And my biological father?”
Laura hesitated.
“We found a match.”
“Who?”
She turned toward Evelyn.
Evelyn stopped laughing.
David followed her gaze.
“No.”
Evelyn whispered, “I was young.”
“Who?”
Catherine covered her face.
Laura answered.
“Henry Walker.”
David stared at her.
The man who had raised him had actually been his biological father all along.
Everything Evelyn told him had been designed to destabilize him.
I suddenly understood.
She had created false paternity reports to make every family member doubt everyone else.
Confusion made people easier to control.
Detective Collins escorted Evelyn toward the police vehicle.
She turned back.
“You think this ends with me?”
I held Lily’s smartwatch recording in my hand.
“For you, yes.”
She smiled.
“Then ask Michael why he wanted the second injector.”
I frowned.
“We know why.”
“No.”
Her expression became almost triumphant.
“He wasn’t asking whether police found it.”
My stomach tightened.
“What was he asking?”
Evelyn leaned closer before the officer moved her away.
“He wanted to know whether Lily used it.”
I stared after her.
Then my phone rang.
Michael.
From jail.
I answered.
“What did you do?”
He was crying.
“Sarah, listen to me.”
“What was inside the second injector?”
Silence.
My skin turned cold.
“Michael.”
“It wasn’t epinephrine.”
David grabbed the phone.
“What was it?”
Michael sobbed.
“I didn’t know until tonight.”
“WHAT WAS IT?”
“A sedative.”
I stopped breathing.
Why would someone put a sedative into Lily’s emergency injector?
Michael continued.
“Evelyn didn’t want the hospital to save Lily.”
I felt sick.
“But she didn’t want her dead either.”
“Then what did she want?”
Another silence.
“To make her disappear.”
The line went dead.
Detective Collins immediately turned back toward us.
I stared at Lily’s hospital bracelet still wrapped around my wrist.
Evelyn had not been planning only to seize a trust.
She had been preparing to take my daughter.
May you like
And somewhere inside the lake house, officers had just discovered a child-sized bedroom with Lily’s name painted across the wall.
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