CHAPTER 7 – THE MOTHER WHO LIED FOR TWENTY YEARS
Daniel stared at the list.
His hands trembled so violently that the paper slipped onto the floor.
At the very top was a name he never expected to see.
Margaret Brooks.
His mother.
"No..."
He whispered.
"This has to be fake."
Sophia picked up the document and read every page carefully.
After a long silence, she looked at Daniel.
"It isn't saying your mother killed Richard."
"It's saying she was one of the people who knew the truth."
Daniel's heart pounded.
Then his phone rang.
The caller ID displayed a name that made his blood run cold.
MOM.
He answered immediately.
"Daniel..."
Her voice was shaking.
"They found me."
"You have to leave the city."
Before he could respond...
A loud crash echoed through the phone.
Men shouting.
Glass breaking.
Then...
The line went dead.
Daniel and Sophia raced to Margaret's countryside house.
Police cars surrounded the property.
Yellow tape covered the entrance.
Inside, furniture had been destroyed.
Drawers had been ripped open.
Whoever came wasn't looking for money.
They were searching for something.
Detective Ryan Foster walked toward Daniel.
"We found this hidden beneath your mother's bedroom floor."
He handed Daniel an old cassette tape labeled only with today's date.
Daniel inserted it into an old recorder.
His mother's voice filled the room.
"If you're listening to this..."
"I'm probably gone."
Tears filled Daniel's eyes.
"There are things I never told you."
"Richard Holloway was your father."
"But he wasn't the man I feared."
"The real monster..."
"...was Marcus Kane."
Daniel looked at Sophia in disbelief.
Margaret continued.
"Marcus discovered Richard's secret family years before anyone else."
"He hired men to kidnap you."
"When that failed..."
"He murdered your adoptive parents."
"I wanted to tell the police."
"But Marcus showed me photographs of you."
"He promised the next funeral would be yours."
Daniel collapsed into a chair.
Everything he believed about his childhood had been a carefully constructed lie.
Then the recording changed.
Margaret whispered one final sentence.
"There is only one person alive who knows where Richard hid the evidence."
"She has lived under another name for twenty years."
"Find... Eleanor."
The tape stopped.
Everyone looked at each other.
"Eleanor who?" Sophia asked.
Before anyone could answer...
Detective Foster received a radio call.
His face turned pale.
He slowly lowered the radio.
"They found your mother."
Daniel jumped to his feet.
"Is she alive?"
The detective hesitated.
"They found her car..."
"...at the bottom of Blackwater Bridge."
"But there was no body inside."
Silence filled the room.
Daniel's breathing became heavier.
Marcus hadn't killed Margaret.
He had taken her.
Because she was the last witness who could destroy him forever.
At that exact moment, Daniel received a text message from an unknown number.
It contained only a single photograph.
Margaret was tied to a chair inside a dark warehouse.
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Below the picture were eight chilling words:
"Come alone... or your mother dies before sunrise."
