PART 4
The explosion lifted the conference-room floor beneath my feet.
For one impossible second, I was weightless.
Then the windows shattered.
Rebecca screamed as the force threw her against the wall. Detective Cole slammed into the conference table, and the phone flew from my hand. A wave of heat rolled through the room, followed by smoke, dust and the deafening shriek of the fire alarm.
I hit the floor hard.
Something heavy landed across my legs.
I could not hear properly. Every sound seemed far away, buried beneath a high ringing inside my head.
Orange flames appeared through the open office door.
“Margaret!”
Graham’s face emerged through the smoke.
He pushed a broken section of ceiling away from my legs and grabbed my arms.
“Can you stand?”
“I—I think so.”
“Then move.”
He pulled me upright.
Rebecca was crouched beneath her desk with blood running from a cut above her eyebrow. Detective Cole lay near the overturned table, one arm bent beneath him.
“Detective!”
I stumbled toward him.
Cole opened his eyes.
“I’m alive,” he coughed. “Get Rebecca out.”
“We’re not leaving you.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
Smoke poured through the doorway.
The explosion had come from the office directly below us. Flames climbed the hallway walls, blocking the main staircase.
Graham wrapped one arm around Rebecca.
“Is there another exit?”
“The rear records room,” she said. “There’s an emergency stairwell.”
Cole struggled to his knees.
I reached for him, but he shook his head.
“My radio.”
It lay near the broken window.
Beyond the shattered glass, the black SUV was already moving.
The man behind the wheel looked up once.
Even through the smoke, I saw Richard’s face.
Then the vehicle disappeared around the corner.
Cole retrieved his radio.
“Explosion at Lang Legal Group,” he said between coughs. “Suspect vehicle is a black SUV heading east. Possible remote detonation. Send fire and medical.”
Another section of the ceiling collapsed behind us.
Graham pulled open the records-room door.
“Now!”
We stumbled through rows of filing cabinets while sprinklers sprayed cold water from above. Rebecca found the emergency exit and shoved it open.
The narrow staircase was dark.
Cole went first, leaning heavily against the railing. Rebecca followed. Graham stayed behind me, one hand pressed against my back as we descended.
Halfway down, I stopped.
“My purse.”
Graham stared at me.
“What?”
“I left it in the conference room.”
“Forget it.”
“The deed is inside.”
His expression hardened.
“The building is burning.”
“If Vanessa gets the original—”
“You’ll be dead before she does.”
I tried to turn back.
Graham blocked the stairs.
“Margaret, listen to me. Daniel needs you alive more than he needs that house.”
The words stopped me.
Daniel.
My son was still trapped at the lake house.
I forced myself down the remaining steps.
We escaped through a rear door seconds before fire burst from the second-floor windows.
Paramedics and firefighters rushed toward us. Someone wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. Another paramedic examined the back of my head and asked me questions I barely understood.
Across the parking lot, flames consumed Rebecca’s office.
Along with the original deed.
Or so I thought.
Graham sat beside me on the curb.
His jacket was torn, and his left hand was bleeding.
He reached beneath his shirt.
“I took this before we left the conference room.”
He pulled out the cream envelope.
My envelope.
I stared at him.
“You went back for it?”
“It was beside Daniel’s phone.”
“You could have been killed.”
“So could you.”
He handed it to me.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Twenty-three years earlier, Graham had walked away while I begged him to stay.
Today, he had walked into fire to save something that mattered to me.
It did not erase the past.
But it complicated my anger.
Detective Cole approached with his arm in a sling.
“The fire department believes the device was placed in the vacant office below Rebecca’s,” he said. “The blast was directed upward.”
Rebecca pressed gauze against her forehead.
“They wanted to destroy my office.”
“And everyone inside it,” I said.
“Possibly,” Cole replied. “But the device was smaller than it looked. It ruptured a gas line and caused the fire. Whoever built it wanted chaos more than certainty.”
“To make us move,” Graham said.
Cole looked at him.
“Or to stop us from tracing the call.”
He held up my damaged phone.
“The call from Vanessa ended seconds before the explosion. We still captured part of the signal.”
“Was Daniel at the lake house?” I asked.
“The call originated near the lake, yes.”
“Then how was Richard driving the SUV across from Rebecca’s office?”
Cole’s eyes narrowed.
“That is what I was about to ask you.”
Graham looked toward the burning building.
“It wasn’t Richard.”
“I saw his face,” I said.
“So did I.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Graham slowly turned toward us.
“Richard Cross has an identical twin.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“Vanessa has never mentioned an uncle.”
“Because according to public records, Raymond Cross died twelve years ago.”
Cole straightened.
“How?”
“Boating accident. His boat was found drifting near Hilton Head. Blood on the deck, no body.”
“And you believe he survived?”
“I know he did.”
“How?”
Graham’s face tightened.
“Raymond was one of the men I owed money to.”
The noise around us seemed to fade.
“The gamblers?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Richard handled legitimate businesses. Raymond handled everything else—illegal loans, forged documents, intimidation. Richard wore expensive suits and attended charity dinners. Raymond broke fingers.”
My skin turned cold.
“Which one threatened Daniel when he was seven?”
“Raymond.”
“And you never told me?”
“I thought he was dead.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Graham looked down at his bleeding hand.
“I was afraid that if I said his name, he would come back.”
“He came back anyway.”
“Yes.”
Detective Cole motioned toward an unmarked police vehicle.
“We need to relocate. If the Cross brothers know Rebecca’s office, they may know where Margaret lives, where Graham is staying and where we take her next.”
“I’m not going anywhere except the lake house.”
“No,” Cole said.
“My son is there.”
“And three people who may have committed multiple murders are waiting for you.”
“Then arrest them.”
“We have officers moving toward the property, but the Crosses threatened Daniel’s life if they saw police.”
“They already know you’re involved.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m sending his mother into a hostage situation.”
My phone vibrated in Cole’s hand.
The screen was cracked, but still working.
A video message had arrived from Daniel’s number.
Cole opened it.
Daniel sat tied to a wooden chair in the lake house living room.
His hands were secured behind him. Blood darkened one side of his shirt, and his head hung forward.
Vanessa stood beside him holding a syringe.
Her wedding dress was torn at the shoulder and stained with mud.
Behind her, Richard Cross watched the camera.
This time, there was no doubt.
It was Richard.
“Margaret,” Vanessa said, “the explosion was your first warning.”
She touched the needle to Daniel’s neck.
“Your second warning is inside this syringe.”
Daniel lifted his head weakly.
“Mom, don’t come.”
Vanessa struck him across the face.
I flinched.
“You have forty-five minutes,” she continued. “Bring the original deed, your identification and Rebecca Lang. No police. No tricks.”
Richard stepped closer to the camera.
“And bring Graham.”
Graham went still.
Richard smiled.
“My brother has waited twenty-three years to finish their conversation.”
The video ended.
Detective Cole immediately called the tactical commander.
Rebecca took the envelope from my hand and examined it.
“The original deed is useless without Margaret’s authorization,” she said. “They still need a clean transfer.”
“They’ll force her to sign,” Graham replied.
“Not if I prepare a document that appears valid but automatically freezes the property when filed.”
Cole looked at her.
“Can you do that?”
“I can create an authorization containing the fraud-alert code. The clerk will recognize it as a distress signal.”
“Your office is on fire.”
“My secure files are backed up remotely.”
She turned to me.
“If we give them what appears to be everything they want, they may keep Daniel alive long enough for police to enter.”
Cole shook his head.
“We do not use civilians as bait.”
“I am not bait,” I said. “I am his mother.”
“That is exactly why you cannot think clearly.”
I stepped closer to him.
“I worked in emergency medicine for thirty-four years. I have held pressure on wounds while families screamed at me. I have made decisions while patients died in my hands. Do not mistake fear for confusion.”
Cole held my gaze.
Behind him, firefighters continued fighting the blaze.
Finally, he spoke.
“If we attempt an exchange, you follow every instruction. You do not improvise. You do not try to rescue Daniel yourself.”
“I understand.”
“That wasn’t agreement.”
“It’s the best answer you’re getting.”
Rebecca almost smiled despite the blood on her face.
Cole did not.
Twenty minutes later, we were inside a mobile police command vehicle.
Rebecca worked on a laptop while a medic bandaged Graham’s hand. Officers studied maps of the lake house and surrounding woods.
I drew the layout from memory.
“The front driveway is exposed,” I explained. “There’s a path along the eastern side leading to the dock. The back door opens into the kitchen.”
“Other entrances?” the tactical commander asked.
“One.”
Graham looked at me.
“The storm cellar.”
I had forgotten.
The old cellar entrance was hidden beneath a sloping section of earth behind the hydrangeas. My father had sealed it after a snake entered the house when Daniel was ten.
“It was boarded up,” I said.
“From the inside,” Graham replied. “The exterior doors still open.”
Cole pointed to the map.
“Where does it lead?”
“Beneath the pantry.”
The commander marked the location.
“A team can approach through the woods, enter the cellar and wait below the house.”
“And if the floor creaks?” I asked.
“They won’t move until we give the order.”
Rebecca printed several documents using equipment inside the command vehicle.
She placed them in a new envelope.
“This appears to transfer full ownership to Daniel and Vanessa. The authorization code will freeze the filing and alert the county clerk.”
“Will they know it’s fake?”
“Not unless they contact the clerk before releasing you.”
“They won’t release us,” Graham said.
No one contradicted him.
Cole placed a small transmitter beneath the lining of my coat.
Another device went inside the envelope.
“If they search you, the coat microphone may be found,” he said. “The envelope tracker is harder to detect.”
“What about Graham?”
“He isn’t going inside.”
Graham stood.
“Richard demanded me.”
“And Raymond wants to kill you.”
“That is why they might trade Daniel for both of us.”
“No,” I said.
Graham looked at me.
“I left him once.”
“This is not about proving something.”
“It is to me.”
I lowered my voice.
“Daniel doesn’t need his father to die for him. He needs his father to live long enough to explain why he disappeared.”
Pain moved across Graham’s face.
Before he could answer, my phone rang.
Vanessa.
Cole signaled for silence.
I answered.
“We’re coming.”
“Who is we?”
“Rebecca and me.”
“And Graham?”
“He refused.”
Vanessa laughed.
“He always was a coward.”
Graham reached for the phone, but Cole stopped him.
“I have the deed,” I said. “Before I bring it inside, I need to see Daniel.”
“You saw him.”
“I need proof he is still alive.”
There was movement on the other end.
Then Daniel’s voice came through.
“Mom?”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t trust—”
A blow cut him off.
“Daniel!”
“He’s alive,” Vanessa said. “For now.”
The call ended.
Cole checked the trace.
“Same location.”
The tactical commander lifted his radio.
“Teams are in position.”
The drive to the lake house took twenty-three minutes.
I spent every one of them remembering Daniel as a child.
His first day of school.
The gap between his front teeth.
The way he used to crawl into my bed during storms and pretend he was only checking whether I was afraid.
I remembered the first time he brought Vanessa to dinner.
She had been attentive, charming and affectionate. She complimented my cooking. She asked about my years at the hospital. She carried the dishes to the kitchen without being asked.
Later, she stood in front of the family photographs in the hallway for nearly ten minutes.
I had believed she was interested in Daniel’s childhood.
Now I wondered whether she had been studying us.
The police stopped half a mile from the property.
Rebecca and I transferred to my car.
Cole leaned through the window.
“Drive slowly. Park near the front steps. Keep your hands visible.”
“What if I see Daniel in immediate danger?”
“Use the phrase ‘My father built this house.’ That is the signal for entry.”
“And if they take my phone?”
“The microphone will remain active.”
Graham approached my side of the car.
“They changed the kitchen window last month,” he said.
I frowned.
“How do you know?”
“I came here after following Vanessa. The new window opens outward. The old one opened upward.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because if you need to escape through the kitchen, don’t waste time trying to lift it.”
He placed the bundle of returned letters on my lap.
“I want Daniel to have these.”
“You can give them to him yourself.”
“In case I can’t.”
“Graham—”
“I’m going through the cellar with the police.”
Cole turned sharply.
“No, you’re not.”
“I know where the support beams are. Your officers don’t.”
The tactical commander studied him for a moment.
“He goes behind the team, unarmed.”
Cole cursed under his breath.
Graham looked at me.
“I am sorry, Margaret.”
“For leaving?”
“For everything.”
I wanted to tell him that sorry was too small.
Instead, I placed the letters in my purse.
“Come back alive,” I said.
His eyes filled with something I could not name.
Then he stepped away.
Rebecca got into the passenger seat.
We drove the final half mile alone.
The lake appeared between the trees.
Gray water stretched beneath the evening sky. My parents’ house stood at the end of the driveway, its white siding faded and its porch lights glowing.
A black SUV was parked near the dock.
Another waited beside the house.
Two brothers.
Richard and Raymond.
The front door opened before I stopped the car.
Vanessa stepped onto the porch.
She had removed the ruined wedding dress.
Now she wore black pants, boots and one of my mother’s old blue sweaters.
Seeing her in it made me feel more violated than the forged deed.
“Leave your phones in the car,” she called.
Rebecca and I obeyed.
“Bring the envelope.”
I held it above my head.
Vanessa searched us on the porch.
Her hands moved over my coat, but she did not find the transmitter hidden in its lining.
She took Rebecca’s bag and removed the documents.
“Where is Graham?”
“He isn’t coming.”
“He will.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because men like Graham always return to the place where they first became cowards.”
She opened the front door.
The living room had been transformed.
Files covered my mother’s dining table. Computers sat beneath the windows. Medical supplies were arranged on the fireplace mantel.
Daniel remained tied to the chair.
His eyes found mine.
“Mom.”
I moved toward him.
Raymond stepped from behind the door.
He looked almost exactly like Richard.
The same silver hair.
The same narrow eyes.
But Raymond had a scar running from his left ear to his chin.
He pressed a gun against Rebecca’s back.
“Not yet.”
Richard stood near the fireplace holding the original metal file box from my mother’s study.
“You caused quite a problem today, Margaret.”
“You seated me beside trash.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes.
“You’re still talking about that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it told me exactly who you were.”
Richard opened the envelope.
He examined the deed and authorization documents.
“Rebecca,” he said, “you have always been thorough.”
Rebecca said nothing.
“Give me the fraud-alert code.”
“It’s written on the authorization.”
“I want you to say it.”
She recited the code Rebecca and the clerk had prepared.
Richard typed it into his laptop.
My heart pounded.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then the screen displayed:
DOCUMENT RECEIVED — PENDING REVIEW.
Richard smiled.
“Finally.”
Vanessa walked behind Daniel and rested both hands on his shoulders.
“You see?” she whispered to him. “Your mother could have avoided all of this.”
Daniel stared at her.
“Did you ever love me?”
Vanessa’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
“You were useful,” she said.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Love is something people invent when they want free access to each other’s lives.”
“You cried when I proposed.”
“I needed your mother to believe me.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
A tear slid down his face.
I had been so angry with him that morning.
Now I saw what Vanessa had done.
She had not merely manipulated his greed.
She had studied every weakness inside him.
His need for approval.
His fear of abandonment.
His desire to build the perfect family his father had denied him.
She had used his wounds as doorways.
“Let him go,” I said.
Richard laughed.
“You are not in a position to make demands.”
“You have the deed.”
“We have a document.”
“You filed it.”
“And it is pending review.”
He looked at Rebecca.
“If it does not clear in ten minutes, Raymond will begin removing fingers.”
Rebecca remained calm.
“You cannot force the county clerk to approve a deed after business hours.”
Richard’s smile disappeared.
“You found a way to freeze it.”
“I followed the law.”
Raymond struck her across the face with the back of his hand.
She fell against the wall.
“Stop!” I shouted.
Daniel struggled against the ropes.
Vanessa pressed the syringe to his neck.
“Sit down, Margaret.”
I obeyed.
Richard crouched in front of me.
“Your mother was just as stubborn.”
My fear sharpened.
“You knew my mother?”
“All of us did.”
He glanced toward the metal file box.
“She collected things that did not belong to her.”
“Those were her records.”
“Some of them.”
“What was in the photograph you burned?”
Richard looked at Raymond.
For the first time, both men seemed uneasy.
Vanessa tightened her grip on Daniel.
“Dad, don’t.”
I turned toward her.
“You know.”
She did not answer.
“What was in that photograph?”
A loud thump came from beneath the floor.
Everyone froze.
Raymond raised his gun.
“What was that?”
“The old pipes,” Richard said.
Another sound followed.
Softer.
Closer.
The tactical team was beneath us.
Richard looked toward the pantry.
I needed to distract him.
“My father built this house.”
Rebecca’s eyes snapped toward me.
The signal.
Richard slowly turned back.
“No,” he said. “He didn’t.”
The lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Vanessa screamed.
Glass shattered in the kitchen.
Raymond fired twice.
The gunshots were deafening.
I threw myself toward Daniel’s chair.
Someone grabbed my coat, but the fabric tore. I hit the floor beside my son and reached for the ropes around his wrists.
“Mom!”
“Stay down.”
Red tactical lights flooded the windows.
Officers shouted from the hallway.
“Police! Drop your weapons!”
Another gunshot cracked through the room.
Rebecca crawled behind the sofa.
Richard overturned the dining table and fired toward the kitchen.
I found the rope knot behind Daniel’s chair.
My fingers shook too badly to loosen it.
Then Graham appeared from the pantry.
He held a broken piece of wood in both hands.
Raymond charged him.
The two men crashed into the wall.
“Twenty-three years,” Raymond snarled. “I told you I’d finish this.”
Graham drove his shoulder into Raymond’s chest.
“You should have stayed dead.”
They fell across the coffee table.
Vanessa grabbed my hair and dragged me away from Daniel.
I cried out.
She wrapped one arm around my throat and pressed the syringe against my skin.
“Tell them to stop!”
“Drop it, Vanessa!”
An officer aimed at her from the hallway.
“If you shoot me, she gets the full dose.”
The needle pierced my neck.
I forced myself to remain still.
“What’s inside?” I whispered.
“You already know.”
“Digoxin?”
“Enough.”
Daniel struggled against the chair.
“Vanessa, please.”
She looked at him.
Something passed between them.
Regret.
Anger.
Perhaps even the smallest trace of the woman he had believed she was.
“Let my mother go,” he said.
“You would still choose her?”
“She didn’t marry me to kill me.”
Vanessa’s face hardened.
She pressed the plunger slightly.
A burning sensation entered my neck.
My heart began racing.
“Vanessa,” I said carefully, “if you inject all of it, I will die before the property transfer clears.”
Her grip loosened.
Only a fraction.
It was enough.
I drove my heel into her foot and threw my head backward.
My skull struck her mouth.
She screamed and dropped the syringe.
The officer lunged forward.
Vanessa ran toward the kitchen.
Daniel tipped his chair sideways, knocking her off balance. She fell beside him.
I grabbed the syringe and threw it beneath the sofa.
Graham and Raymond continued fighting near the fireplace.
Richard aimed his gun at Graham.
“Behind you!” I shouted.
Graham turned too late.
Richard fired.
Graham collapsed.
“No!”
I crawled toward him.
Raymond seized Richard’s arm.
“You almost shot me!”
“You were supposed to control him.”
The brothers began shouting at each other.
Police rushed into the room.
Richard fired toward the ceiling and disappeared through the side door. Raymond followed him.
Two officers chased them toward the lake.
Another cut Daniel free.
I reached Graham.
Blood covered the front of his shirt.
He looked down at the wound, then at me.
“I came back,” he whispered.
“Don’t speak.”
“I came back this time.”
I pressed both hands against his chest.
The bullet had entered near his shoulder, not his heart.
“You are not dying,” I said. “Do you hear me?”
A medic rushed over and replaced my hands with a trauma pad.
Daniel dropped to his knees beside us.
He stared at Graham.
“Dad?”
Graham’s eyes opened.
For the first time in twenty-three years, father and son looked directly at each other.
“Daniel,” Graham whispered.
Daniel’s face crumpled.
Before either man could say more, a gunshot echoed from the dock.
Then another.
An officer’s voice shouted through the darkness.
“Suspects heading toward the boat!”
Cole ran past us with his injured arm held against his body.
Rebecca emerged from behind the sofa.
“Where is Vanessa?”
I turned.
The floor beside Daniel’s chair was empty.
The back door stood open.
“She escaped.”
Daniel tried to stand, but his legs failed.
“Mom, the files.”
“What?”
“The files I found upstairs. Richard wasn’t just targeting you.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
He pointed toward the metal box near the fireplace.
“I found something inside.”
A woman’s voice came from the dark hallway.
“Do not touch that box.”
Lydia Cross stepped into the room.
She wore the same formal dress she had worn at the wedding, but the pearls were gone. Her hair had fallen loose around her face.
She held a gun in one hand.
In the other was the photograph Graham had claimed Richard burned.
It had not been destroyed.
Police raised their weapons.
Lydia pressed the gun beneath Rebecca’s chin.
“Everyone lower your weapons.”
No one moved.
“I said lower them.”
Cole entered through the side door.
“Lydia, this is over.”
She smiled sadly.
“No, Detective. Richard’s part is over.”
From outside came the roar of a boat engine.
Richard and Raymond were escaping across the lake.
Lydia did not even look toward the sound.
She had planned to leave them behind.
“You were the one in control,” I said.
“Richard believed he was.”
“And Vanessa?”
“My daughter knows enough to obey.”
Daniel stared at her.
“What did you make her do?”
Lydia looked at him with something close to pity.
“I made her marry the right man.”
She threw the old photograph onto the floor in front of me.
It showed my mother as a young woman standing beside a frightened teenage girl.
The girl was pregnant.
Even through the faded image, I recognized Lydia’s eyes.
On the back, my mother had written:
Lydia Ann Mercer, 1965.
My daughter.
My knees weakened.
“Your mother had a child before she married your father,” Lydia said.
I looked from the photograph to her face.
“No.”
“She was sixteen. Her parents sent her away. I was adopted by the Mercer family and told my mother was dead.”
“You’re lying.”
“She found me thirty years later. She promised to tell you. She promised to divide the lake property between us.”
My mother had never said a word.
Lydia’s eyes filled with decades of hatred.
“Then she changed her mind.”
“Why?”
“Because she met Richard. She discovered what he was doing and believed I was involved.”
“You were involved.”
“Not then.”
Her hand tightened around the gun.
“She hid my birth certificate and the amended property trust inside that box. Without those documents, I could prove nothing.”
Daniel looked horrified.
“Then Vanessa is Margaret’s niece.”
“Yes.”
“And she knew?”
Lydia smiled.
“From the beginning.”
Daniel’s face turned white.
Vanessa had knowingly married her first cousin.
But Lydia had not finished.
She reached into her dress and removed another folded document.
“This is Daniel’s will,” she said.
Daniel shook his head.
“I don’t have a will.”
“You signed it three weeks ago with your mortgage papers.”
She opened it.
“Everything you own passes to your wife.”
Vanessa.
Lydia moved the gun from Rebecca’s neck and pointed it at Daniel.
“The lake house was never the final goal.”
I stepped in front of my son.
“What was?”
Lydia’s smile disappeared.
“Your family trust.”
I stared at her.
“I don’t have a family trust.”
“Yes, you do. Your father created it before he died. The lake property, his investments and land along the coast were placed inside it.”
“How much?”
“Forty-two million dollars.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
Lydia cocked the gun.
“And once you and Daniel are dead, Vanessa becomes the last surviving descendant named in the trust.”
A floorboard creaked behind her.
Vanessa appeared in the hallway.
Her mouth was bleeding, and tears streaked her face.
She was holding a second gun.
But she was not aiming it at me.
She was aiming it at her mother.
“Put the gun down,” Vanessa whispered.
Lydia stared at her.
“What are you doing?”
Vanessa looked at Daniel.
For the first time that day, there was no mockery in her expression.
Only terror.
“I changed my mind.”
Lydia laughed.
“You don’t have a mind to change.”
“I won’t let you kill him.”
“You married him so we could inherit.”
“I know.”
“You poisoned his mother.”
Vanessa’s hand began trembling.
“I know.”
“You helped forge the deed.”
“I know!”
Her scream filled the room.
Daniel stared at the woman he had married.
“Why are you protecting me now?”
Vanessa looked at him.
“Because there is one thing my mother never told you.”
Lydia’s face went still.
“Vanessa, don’t.”
Vanessa took one step forward.
“Daniel, Graham isn’t your biological father.”
The room fell silent.
I felt the air leave my lungs.
Daniel looked at me.
“Mom?”
I could not speak.
Because Lydia was smiling again.
And from the darkness behind Vanessa, Richard Cross raised his gun and said:
“No, son.”
“I am.”………………
TO BE CONTINUED IN LAST PART…
