Chapter 4 - The House of Secrets
The house was dark. It sat on the edge of the woods, a sprawling, Victorian monster that had been in our family for three generations. I approached it from the back, moving through the waist-high snow. My boots crunched, a sound that seemed deafening in the quiet night.
I climbed through the kitchen window, the latch catching on my sweater. I landed on the linoleum, my heart hammering.
"Mom?" I whispered.
Silence.
I moved into the living room. There was a fire in the hearth, dying to embers. A book sat open on the chair. My mother’s reading glasses were perched on the armrest.
I moved toward the study. I needed to find the truth about the cabin, the inheritance, the baby. I started opening drawers. I found bank statements, letters, documents.
And then I found it. A folder labeled Vance Estate.
I opened it. It wasn't an estate plan. It was a medical diary.
October 14th: Hannah is showing signs of paranoia. Evan insists the cabin is the only way to save her. He says the trauma of the miscarriage in July broke her.
November 2nd: I went to see them. He wouldn't let me in. He stood on the porch with a shotgun. He said she was violent.
December 12th: The birth. He called me, screaming. He said the baby wasn't breathing. He said he had to take her to the hospital. He sounded like a man possessed.
I fell back against the wall, the paper trembling in my hands. My mother had believed him. She had been just as trapped in his narrative as I had been.
A floorboard creaked above me.
I went still. I grabbed a heavy glass paperweight from the desk and held it like a weapon.
Footsteps. Slow, deliberate.
The door to the study opened. Evan stood there, silhouetted by the light from the hallway. He looked disheveled, his tie undone, his eyes hollow.
"You always were the difficult one, Hannah," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. "You always wanted the truth, even when the lie was so much more comfortable."
"Where are the kids?" I demanded, raising the paperweight.
"They’re with my brother in Chicago. They’re fine. They think you’re in a private clinic." He stepped into the room. "You shouldn't have come here. I had it all arranged. The cabin, the baby, the inheritance. It was perfect."
"You abandoned a newborn!" I shouted. "You left him on a doorstep like trash!"
"He was the mistake," Evan said, his voice rising in anger. "The baby wasn't supposed to be born early. He was supposed to be the anchor. But he was weak. I couldn't have a weak child. It would have ruined the image."
I lunged.
I didn't think; I just moved. I swung the paperweight, striking his shoulder, but he caught me, pinning my arms to my sides.
"You’re going back to the hospital, Hannah," he whispered into my ear. "And this time, you’re never leaving."
But as he tried to drag me toward the door, the front door burst open.
Police sirens wailed in the distance, getting louder, closer.
Dr. Shah stepped into the doorway, followed by two uniformed officers.
"Mr. Vance," she said, her voice echoing in the hall. "We have the DNA results. And we have a witness who says you were seen leaving the hospital loading dock with a woman who matches your wife’s description, three hours before you claimed she woke up."
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Evan froze. His grip on me loosened.
He looked at the officers, then at me. He realized the cage had closed.
