CHAPTER 6 – "The Woman Behind Every Tragedy"
Forty-eight hours later...
Emily arrived alone at an abandoned cathedral overlooking the ocean.
A leather briefcase rested in her hand.
Inside...
The last files from her father's investigation.
Victoria stood at the altar wearing an elegant black dress.
She was holding Emily's baby.
The little girl slept peacefully, completely unaware of the nightmare surrounding her.
Emily fought back tears.
"Please..."
"Give me my daughter."
Victoria smiled.
"You still don't understand."
She slowly clapped her hands.
Hidden doors opened.
Several armed guards stepped from the shadows.
Then an elderly man in a wheelchair rolled into the room.
Emily froze.
Her entire body went numb.
The man smiled weakly.
"Hello... Emily."
She whispered the impossible.
"...Dad?"
Jonathan had always told her he was dead.
The funeral.
The coffin.
The grave.
Everything...
Had been a lie.
Victoria laughed.
"Your father never died."
"I kept him alive."
"For twenty-five years."
Emily couldn't breathe.
Her father looked painfully thin, his hands trembling from years of captivity.
"I wanted to come home," he whispered.
"They never let me."
Emily fell to her knees in tears.
Victoria raised a pistol.
"I gave him one purpose."
"To sign whatever I needed."
"He built my fortune."
"And now..."
"I don't need him anymore."
She pointed the gun directly at Emily's father.
Emily screamed.
"No!"
A gunshot exploded through the cathedral.
The lights instantly went out.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Screams echoed from every direction.
Another shot.
Then another.
When the emergency lights flickered back on seconds later...
Victoria was gone.
The baby was gone.
Emily's father was gone.
Only one thing remained on the stone floor.
A single envelope with Emily's name written across the front.
Her shaking hands opened it.
Inside was a handwritten note.
"If you're reading this... the person you trusted most has already betrayed you."
Emily slowly turned around.
Jonathan Hale was no longer standing behind her.
May you like
He had disappeared.
To Be Continued...
