Chapter 8 - EVELYN
We met her before sunrise.
An abandoned church stood outside the city.
James drove through a side gate.
A woman waited beneath the stone arch.
She looked thinner.
Older.
A scar crossed her forehead.
But I knew her.
“Mom!”
I ran.
She dropped to her knees.
We collided so hard we nearly fell.
She held me and cried into my hair.
“I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t stop shaking.
“You left me.”
“I know.”
“You let me think you were dead!”
“I know.”
I pushed away.
“Why?”
Her face broke.
“Because if Daniel knew I survived, he would have finished what he started.”
James stood behind us.
Evelyn explained everything.
Dad and Vanessa had stolen millions.
Mom found proof.
She planned to expose them.
The night she disappeared, Vanessa followed her car.
Dad was waiting near the cliff road.
They forced Mom off the road.
Her car went into the river.
She escaped through a broken window.
Arthur found her injured downstream.
Instead of going to police, Arthur hid her.
“Why not take Clara?” James demanded.
Evelyn looked at me.
“Because Daniel told me if I surfaced, Clara would disappear.”
My stomach turned.
For three years, Mom had built a case through federal investigators.
They needed direct evidence linking Dad to attempted murder and money laundering.
“Why now?” I asked.
“Because you found the necklace.”
Vanessa had taken it from Mom after the crash.
A trophy.
Then Mom said something worse.
“Arthur has disappeared.”
I stared at her.
“Dad had a gun.”
Evelyn’s face hardened.
“He’s alive.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he activated his emergency tracker twelve hours ago.”
James looked at the map on her phone.
The signal came from an old Whitmore warehouse.
Mom picked up a coat.
“We’re bringing him home.”
Suddenly headlights swept across the church windows.
James cursed.
“They found us.”
Gunmen entered the courtyard.
Mom grabbed my hand.
May you like
“Run.”
Then a bullet shattered the stained-glass window above our heads.
