Chapter 13: The Hidden Truth
Two days later, we sat in Clara’s cabin—Lily on the couch, wrapped in blankets, me beside her. The police had taken Victoria and Voss away. The charges against me were dropped. Everything should’ve felt okay.
But Lily was quiet. Too quiet.
“Daddy?” she said finally. “There’s something else. Something I never told anyone. Not even you.”
I turned to her. “Anything. You can tell me anything.”
“Mom… before she died… she found out Voss was planning this. She wrote down everything—all his secrets, all the laws he was breaking. She hid it somewhere. Said if anything ever happened to her, you’d know where to look.” She pulled a small, silver locket from under her shirt—Clara’s locket, the one she’d given Lily for her sixteenth birthday. “She told me to keep this safe. That the proof was inside.”
I opened it carefully. Tucked behind a tiny photo of the three of us was a handwritten note in Clara’s perfect cursive: Behind the loose brick in our old garden shed. The truth will protect you both.
May you like
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