Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN WHO BETRAYED EVERYONE
Patricia didn’t answer her phone.
We went to her apartment.
The door was open.
Inside, drawers had been emptied.
Documents covered the floor.
“Patricia?” I shouted.
Nothing.
Noah found blood near the kitchen.
Not much.
Three small drops.
Ethan whispered, “Mom…”
“Stay behind me.”
Richard called police.
Then Noah heard something.
A buzzing sound.
He followed it to the bedroom.
Patricia’s phone lay under the bed.
A new voicemail notification flashed.
The message had arrived seven minutes earlier.
I pressed play.
Patricia’s voice whispered through static.
“Claire, if you get this, don’t trust Charles. But don’t trust Samuel either.”
Noah stiffened.
She continued.
“I helped Samuel disappear because Charles was going to kill him. Samuel had copies of the hospital records. I drove him to Vermont.”
Richard looked at me.
So Charles had lied again.
Then Patricia said something else.
“But Samuel never told you everything.”
I gripped the phone.
“After your mother found Noah’s foster file, Samuel offered to help her recover him. They arranged a meeting.”
A pause.
“Samuel didn’t show.”
Noah frowned.
“Why?”
Patricia’s recorded voice answered as if she heard him.
“Because Charles paid him a second time.”
The room went silent.
Noah’s face changed.
The man he believed had rescued him.
The man who told him the truth.
Had betrayed him too.
Patricia continued.
“Samuel took the money and left the state. Your mother went home alone that night.”
Three days later, the fire happened.
I felt sick.
“Samuel came back years later because guilt destroyed him. He found Noah and tried to make things right.”
Noah looked furious.
“After twelve years?”
The voicemail crackled.
“Claire, there is one final thing you need to know.”
My heart pounded.
“Your mother did not die from complications caused by the fire.”
I stopped breathing.
“She was recovering.”
Richard whispered, “What?”
Patricia’s voice trembled.
“On the night she died, Charles visited her hospital room.”
A crash sounded in the background of the voicemail.
Patricia gasped.
Then she whispered, “Oh God.”
The line ended.
I immediately called 911 again.
Police arrived within minutes.
They found security footage showing Patricia leaving the building with a man in a baseball cap.
She wasn’t dragged.
She walked willingly.
Richard frowned.
“She knew him.”
Noah leaned toward the frozen video frame.
“Zoom in.”
The officer enlarged it.
The man turned just enough for the camera to catch his face.
Noah stumbled backward.
“That’s him.”
“Who?”
His voice barely worked.
May you like
“Dr. Reeve.”
---
