Chapter 8 - The Wall of Photographs
Daniel’s house looked ordinary from the outside.
That made the room upstairs worse.
Hundreds of photographs covered one wall.
Lena entering school.
Lena sitting in a library.
Lena in the mansion garden.
Lena asleep in the back seat of a car.
Some were five years old.
Some were five hours old.
On a desk beneath the photographs, detectives found folders labeled TRANSFER OPTIONS.
Boarding schools in Switzerland.
Private clinics in Canada.
A residential facility in Montana.
Every option was somewhere I would not casually find her.
Mara opened a drawer.
Inside was a passport bearing Lena’s photograph and a different last name.
Lena stared at it.
“That’s me.”
“Yes,” I said.
“But I’ve never been to that country.”
The passport claimed she had.
Three times.
Daniel had built an entire paper trail for a child who did not exist.
Then Detective Ruiz called us downstairs.
They had found Daniel’s safe.
Inside were financial statements, private trust documents, and a flash drive wrapped in a rubber band.
The first video on it showed my mother speaking to Daniel in her kitchen two years earlier.
Evelyn’s voice was unmistakable.
“If Ethan finds out, Lena gets everything eventually.”
Daniel replied, “Not if she never becomes legally his.”
“What about Claire?”
“She’s weak. She’ll keep playing mother as long as we keep reminding her what happens if she doesn’t.”
Then my mother said something that made Lena grip my hand.
“And if Ethan tries to take the girl?”
Daniel leaned toward the camera.
“He won’t get the chance.”
The video ended.
Detective Ruiz looked at me.
“We need to find your brother.”
“He’s not here?”
“No. His car was found abandoned six miles away.”
Mara checked the other files.
One folder was named FINAL CONTINGENCY.
She clicked it.
A map opened.
The red marker was on Lena’s school.
May you like
Beside it was tomorrow’s date.
