Chapter 5 - HIS FATHER’S CONFESSION
Charles Whitmore lived twenty minutes outside the city in the same stone house where Ryan had grown up.
Ryan arrived with Maya shortly before noon.
His father opened the door before they knocked.
Charles looked older than Ryan remembered.
Not physically.
Defeated.
They sat in the library.
Charles poured coffee but never touched his cup.
Finally, Ryan said, “Talk.”
Charles stared at the floor.
“When you were eleven, your mother tried to have me declared mentally incompetent.”
Ryan laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because it sounded impossible.
“What?”
“I wanted a divorce.”
Maya leaned forward.
Charles continued.
“She told doctors I was confused.
Forgetful.
Aggressive.”
Ryan remembered.
His father had spent two months away when Ryan was a child.
Evelyn told him Charles was being treated for exhaustion.
“That clinic…”
Charles nodded.
“She arranged it.”
Ryan felt something inside him shift.
“Why didn’t you leave after?”
“Because she told me she would make sure I never saw you again.”
Ryan’s anger rose.
“You let me believe you were sick.”
“I was ashamed.”
“No.
You were scared.”
Charles looked at him.
“Yes.”
Silence filled the room.
Maya whispered, “Did she do this to anyone else?”
Charles’s face changed.
“Your aunt Rebecca.”
Ryan frowned.
Rebecca was Evelyn’s younger sister.
She had disappeared from the family when Ryan was thirteen.
Evelyn always said Rebecca stole money and moved west.
“She didn’t steal anything,” Charles said.
Ryan stared at him.
“What happened?”
“Rebecca threatened to expose your mother.”
“For what?”
Charles stood.
He walked toward an old cabinet.
From behind a row of books, he removed a thin envelope.
Inside were bank statements.
Ryan scanned them.
Money had been moved from a family trust into accounts controlled by Evelyn.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“These are twenty years old.”
“Rebecca found them.”
“What did Mom do?”
“She accused Rebecca of addiction.
She convinced your grandparents that Rebecca was stealing.”
Ryan’s voice dropped.
“And everyone believed her.”
“Yes.”
Ryan thought about every family story Evelyn had told him.
Every villain.
Every betrayal.
Every person who eventually disappeared.
“What happened to Rebecca?”
Charles hesitated.
“She’s alive.”
Ryan looked up sharply.
“Where?”
“I don’t know exactly.
She contacted me three years ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She begged me not to.”
Ryan slammed his palm onto the desk.
“Everyone is always protecting themselves from her!”
Charles flinched.
Ryan immediately hated himself for shouting.
Maya touched his arm.
Charles reached into the envelope again.
“There’s something you need to see.”
He handed Ryan a photograph.
It showed Evelyn standing beside a woman Ryan didn’t recognize.
Behind them was a psychiatric clinic.
On the back, someone had written:
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO REBECCA.
Ryan stared at the handwriting.
“Who wrote this?”
Charles shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Then Maya’s phone buzzed.
She looked at it.
Her face changed.
“What?”
Ryan asked.
She turned the screen toward him.
A message from an unknown number.
YOU SHOULD HAVE SIGNED.
Ryan stood immediately.
Another message arrived.
NOW EVERYONE WILL SEE WHAT KIND OF MOTHER YOU REALLY ARE.
Attached was a video.
Ryan pressed play.
It showed Maya screaming inside the nursery.
But the beginning had been cut.
The slap was gone.
The stolen inhaler was gone.
Only Maya’s panic remained.
May you like
And beneath the video was one chilling sentence.
UPLOAD SCHEDULED: 6:00 P.M.
