Chapter 4 - What My Mother Hid
Nathan reached the old Moretti house in twelve minutes.
Daniel arrived seconds behind him.
The property had been empty for years.
Nathan kept it because selling it had always felt like selling his mother.
The front door stood open.
"Lily!"
No answer.
Nathan entered.
Dust covered the hallway.
Furniture remained beneath white sheets.
Memories waited everywhere.
His mother's piano.
His father's office.
The staircase Nathan had raced down as a boy.
Then he heard the sewing machine.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
Impossible.
The sound came from Elena's old workroom.
Nathan followed it.
The door was open.
Lily sat on the floor.
She wasn't sewing.
Beside her was a small mechanical music box making a rhythmic clicking sound.
Nathan crossed the room.
"Lily."
She looked up.
"I'm sorry."
He dropped to one knee.
"How did you get here?"
"A lady brought me."
Nathan's face hardened.
"What lady?"
"I don't know."
"Did she hurt you?"
"No."
"Where is she?"
"She left."
Daniel began checking the house.
Nathan stayed with Lily.
"Why did you go with her?"
"She said she knew your mom."
Nathan stared.
"What did she look like?"
"Old."
"How old?"
Lily considered.
"Like Mrs. Alvarez."
That wasn't helpful.
"Gray hair?"
"Some."
"What did she want?"
Lily pointed toward the floor.
"She told me to look there."
One floorboard had been lifted.
Beneath it was a metal tin.
Nathan removed it.
Inside were letters.
Dozens.
Every envelope carried Elena's handwriting.
All addressed to Nathan.
None had been mailed.
His hands shook as he opened the first.
Nate,
If you are reading this, then I failed to tell you myself.
Your father lied about Sarah.
Nathan stopped.
Lily watched him.
"What does it say?"
"Something I should have read a long time ago."
He continued.
Elena explained that Nathan's father, Victor, had forged Nathan's letter to Sarah.
He had also intercepted Sarah's letters to Nathan.
But why?
Because Sarah had accidentally discovered financial records proving Victor had stolen Elena's inheritance.
Nathan sat on the dusty floor.
His entire youth had been engineered.
Sarah hadn't abandoned him.
He hadn't been unwanted.
They had both been manipulated.
Daniel returned.
"House is clear."
Nathan handed him several letters.
"Read."
Daniel did.
His expression changed.
"There could be criminal exposure."
"Victor's dead."
"Maybe not just Victor."
Nathan remembered Sarah's warning.
Someone else was involved.
Lily pulled another envelope from the tin.
"This one has my name."
Nathan turned.
It did.
FOR LILY.
Impossible.
Elena had died more than twenty years before Lily was born.
Nathan took it.
The envelope was newer.
Not Elena's handwriting.
Inside was a note.
THE GIRL IS NOT WHO SARAH TOLD YOU SHE IS.
Nathan's jaw tightened.
Someone had planted it.
The old woman who brought Lily here?
Why?
To reveal the letters?
Or manipulate him?
Nathan searched the tin again.
At the bottom was a photograph.
Sarah.
Older than the eighteen-year-old Nathan remembered.
She stood beside a man Nathan recognized.
Thomas Hale.
His father's accountant.
The name on Lily's birth certificate.
Nathan felt something ugly twist inside him.
Sarah had known Hale.
Had she married him?
Loved him?
Was Lily his daughter?
Nathan hated that the question mattered.
It shouldn't.
Thirty years had passed.
Sarah owed him nothing.
Still, it mattered.
Nathan took Lily back to the hospital.
Sarah nearly tore out her IV reaching for her.
"Lily!"
"I'm okay, Mom."
Sarah held her.
Nathan waited.
Then he placed the photograph on the bed.
Sarah stared at it.
"Thomas Hale."
Her face went white.
"You found this where?"
"My mother's house."
Sarah looked terrified.
"Nate, listen to me."
"I'm listening."
"Thomas wasn't Lily's father."
"The birth certificate says otherwise."
"What?"
Nathan showed her.
Sarah stared.
"I've never seen this."
"Daniel verified it."
"It's false."
"Then who's her father?"
Sarah looked at Lily.
Not now.
Nathan understood.
Again, not now.
Always later.
Always another locked door.
Sarah reached for his hand.
"Thomas helped me disappear."
"Why?"
"Because he discovered what Victor was doing."
"Where is he?"
"Dead."
Nathan's expression tightened.
"When?"
"Seven years ago."
The timing struck him.
Lily was seven.
Sarah saw the thought.
"No."
Nathan said nothing.
"Thomas was my friend."
"Then why is he listed as Lily's father?"
"I don't know."
Daniel entered.
"Nathan."
Something in his tone mattered.
"What?"
"We identified the woman who brought Lily to the house."
"Who?"
Daniel handed him a security-camera image.
Nathan stared at the grainy face.
Older.
Gray hair.
But recognizable.
Sarah gasped.
"No."
Nathan looked at her.
"You know her?"
Sarah's hands trembled.
"That's impossible."
"Who is she?"
Sarah whispered the name.
"Margaret Hale."
Thomas's mother.
Nathan turned toward Daniel.
"Find her."
"I already did."
"Where?"
Daniel looked uncomfortable.
"That's the problem."
He placed another document on the table.
A death certificate.
Margaret Hale had supposedly died twelve years earlier.
Nathan looked from the certificate to the security image.
Same woman.
Same face.
Sarah whispered, "She knew Elena."
Nathan's phone vibrated.
A message.
Unknown number.
A photograph of the silver rose.
Then:
ASK SARAH WHAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT ELENA DIED.
Nathan slowly lifted his eyes.
Sarah had already seen his expression.
"What?"
He showed her.
Sarah stopped breathing.
"Nate..."
"What happened?"
She shook her head.
"Tell me."
Sarah's eyes filled with terror.
"Your mother didn't die the way you were told."
Nathan felt the room tilt.
Sarah reached toward him.
But before she could finish, someone knocked three times on the hospital-room door.
A woman's voice came from outside.
"Nathan?"
Sarah's face drained of color.
May you like
She whispered one name.
"Margaret."
