Chapter 6 - Vanessa Stops Pretending
The stairs were inside Carter House, my father’s old lake property north of the city.
I had not been there since his funeral.
Hale refused to come.
I put him against the wall.
“My son is there.”
“If I go, we both die.”
“If you don’t, Noah might.”
He came.
Vanessa met us at the house with Lily wrapped in a blanket.
I had expected fear.
She looked angry.
“You brought Marcus?”
“That was the demand.”
“You still do exactly what they tell you.”
I stared at her.
“Who is they?”
She laughed bitterly.
“Ask your sister.”
“Claire is alive?”
Vanessa did not answer.
I stepped closer.
“You have ten seconds before I stop treating you like my wife.”
Her face broke for a moment.
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“By drugging me?”
“You were going to the police.”
“About what?”
“You don’t remember.”
I almost shouted.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
Vanessa looked at Hale.
“Show him.”
Hale shook his head.
“Not here.”
Vanessa slapped him.
“Show him.”
Hale opened an old cabinet beneath the stairs.
Inside was a recorder.
My voice played when he pressed the button.
I sounded drunk.
Or drugged.
Claire was shouting at me.
“You signed it, Daniel!”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“You moved eighty-six million dollars.”
“I was told it was an acquisition reserve.”
Then my father’s voice entered the recording.
“Enough.”
I looked at Hale.
“My father was dead.”
Hale said nothing.
On the recording, Claire shouted, “Tell him what you did.”
A crash followed.
Claire screamed.
Then silence.
My voice whispered, “Claire?”
The file ended.
Vanessa looked at me.
“That’s why Claire disappeared.”
I felt sick.
“Because I hurt her?”
“No.”
Vanessa stepped closer.
“Because she realized someone could make you do things and erase your memory afterward.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
We all looked up.
Noah appeared at the railing.
“Dad?”
I ran toward him.
He was alive.
Unhurt.
And completely alone.
“Noah, where is the man who brought you here?”
He looked confused.
“What man?”
“The one who took you.”
Noah shook his head.
“Aunt Claire brought me.”
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