Chapter 34 - My Father’s Voice
I didn't move.
Neither did Arthur.
The monitors kept flashing.
NATALIE, DON'T TRUST ARTHUR.
Then the message changed.
NATALIE, HE LIED ABOUT YOUR MOTHER.
My breath caught.
I turned toward Anna.
She looked like she'd been struck.
“You knew.”
Anna shook her head.
“I knew part of it.”
“What part?”
“That Jonathan said your mother died.”
“Did she?”
Anna's eyes filled with tears.
“No.”
Diane stared at her.
“Then who is she?”
Anna looked at me.
“I don't know.”
I couldn't stop staring at the screens.
A video opened on the center monitor.
Jonathan appeared again.
This time he was sitting behind a desk.
He looked older.
The scar over his eyebrow was impossible to miss.
He spoke directly to the camera.
“Natalie, you're probably angry.”
“You don't know me,” I whispered.
“I know you better than you think.”
Evan stepped closer.
“How?”
The recording continued.
“Because I've watched you.”
My blood ran cold.
“For years, I watched from places you never noticed.”
Photographs began appearing behind him.
Me at a school graduation.
Me in a hospital waiting room.
Me standing outside an apartment.
Me at twenty-five.
Me with Evan.
Me at a family dinner.
Me crying in a parking lot.
I covered my mouth.
“This is impossible.”
Anna whispered.
“He had surveillance.”
Evan looked furious.
“He was stalking her.”
Jonathan's voice continued.
“I did not leave you because I didn't love you.”
I laughed through tears.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“I left because I knew what your family would do to you if they knew who you were.”
The screen changed.
A photograph of a baby.
Me.
Wrapped in a white blanket.
A woman leaned over the crib.
I stared.
Her face was blurred by age and distance.
But I knew her.
Somewhere inside me, I knew her.
“Who is that?”
Anna whispered.
“Your mother.”
“What's her name?”
Anna shook her head.
Jonathan answered.
“Her name was Evelyn Brooks.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Diane looked at him.
“You knew.”
Arthur didn't respond.
I turned on him.
“You knew my mother's name.”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
He said nothing.
“Where is my mother?”
“She disappeared.”
“When?”
“After you were born.”
“Because of Jonathan?”
“Because of me.”
Silence.
My heart pounded.
“What did you do?”
Arthur looked at me.
“I hid you.”
“That doesn't answer the question.”
“I hid you because Evelyn wanted to take you and leave.”
“Then why didn't she?”
Arthur's expression broke.
“Because Jonathan found her first.”
The screen suddenly changed again.
A scanned document appeared.
EVELYN BROOKS — TRANSFER STATUS: UNKNOWN.
Below it:
SUBJECT PRESUMED DECEASED.
I stared.
“Presumed?”
“That was the official wording,” Arthur said.
“Presumed?”
“Yes.”
“You never confirmed she died.”
“No.”
“Then she could still be alive.”
Arthur didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
Evan took my hand.
“We'll find her.”
I looked at him.
“You don't even know whether she's alive.”
“I know I won't stop looking.”
The simple certainty in his voice nearly broke me.
Then Victor laughed.
We turned.
He was sitting against the wall, blood soaking his shirt.
“You're still looking in the wrong direction.”
The investigator crouched beside him.
“Who is Evelyn?”
Victor smiled.
“You'll ask her yourself.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
Victor looked at the monitors.
“Jonathan didn't call you here to meet him.”
He glanced toward Arthur.
“He called you here because he wants you to open the original trust.”
I looked at the ledger.
“You said I could.”
Victor nodded.
“But only after you meet the witness.”
“Who?”
Victor's smile disappeared.
“Your mother.”
Diane inhaled sharply.
“You know where she is?”
“Yes.”
“Tell us.”
Victor looked at her.
“She was never missing.”
That sentence changed everything.
I felt dizzy.
“Where has she been?”
“In plain sight.”
Rachel whispered, “No.”
Victor nodded.
“She changed her name.”
“To what?”
He stared directly at me.
“Rebecca Bell.”
The archive went silent.
My mind refused to process it.
Rebecca.
The woman whose father had altered births.
The woman whose name had appeared beside Dr. Bell.
The woman we'd blamed for the fake records.
Rebecca was my mother?
“No.”
Victor nodded.
“Yes.”
I looked at Anna.
She was crying.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“You said you didn't know.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
I backed away.
“Everyone lies.”
Anna flinched.
Evan said my name.
But I couldn't hear him.
Rebecca's face kept flashing through my mind.
Her cold expression.
Her careful questions.
The old medical files.
The blood records.
The way she looked at Lucas.
The way she avoided my eyes.
I suddenly remembered something.
She had touched my cheek once.
Just once.
And she'd whispered:
“You have Evelyn's eyes.”
I turned toward the screen.
“Where is she?”
Victor leaned his head back.
“She's upstairs.”
The investigator immediately stood.
“Upstairs where?”
Victor smiled.
“The house.”
We all looked at the ceiling.
The mansion above us.
The same house where I'd eaten dinner.
The same hallway where I'd walked past photographs.
The same rooms where secrets had been hidden for years.
“She was here the entire time?”
Victor nodded.
Then the archive lights went black again.
A door opened somewhere overhead.
Footsteps moved across the ceiling.
Slow.
Deliberate.
A woman's voice called down through the ventilation system.
“Natalie.”
I froze.
“Come upstairs.”
The investigator motioned for the officers.
Nobody moved.
The voice came again.
“My daughter.”
Diane started crying.
Anna whispered:
“She's alive.”
I looked at Evan.
He squeezed my hand.
“Whatever happens next, I'm with you.”
We left the archive together.
The corridor beyond the steel door was empty.
No guards.
No gunmen.
Just a trail of photographs scattered across the floor.
I picked one up.
It showed me as a baby.
On the back was a handwritten sentence.
SHE WILL RETURN WHEN THE TRUST OPENS.
I stared at it.
Then I heard another voice.
This one behind me.
“Don't.”
I turned.
Arthur stood in the doorway.
“Don't go upstairs.”
“Why?”
His eyes were full of fear.
“Because Rebecca isn't your mother.”
May you like
He looked toward the staircase.
“She is the woman who killed her.”
