Chapter 6 - The Second Wall
I didn’t sleep.
At sunrise, we returned home.
Lily refused to leave my side.
Vanessa had been taken in for questioning.
Police guarded the property.
Marco and I went directly to the nursery.
“Second wall,” I said.
He studied every inch.
Then Lily walked to the old rocking chair.
“Mommy used to sit there.”
My chest tightened.
She barely remembered Amelia.
“Do you remember anything else?”
“She tapped the wall.”
Marco turned.
“Where?”
Lily pointed behind the chair.
We moved it.
Three tiny stars were carved into the wood panel.
Marco pressed the center star.
Click.
A section of wall opened.
Inside sat a sealed brown envelope.
No dust.
No damage.
Amelia had protected it carefully.
My name was written across the front.
I opened it.
Medical records.
DNA test.
Hospital forms.
And a handwritten letter.
Daniel,
If you are reading this, I failed to tell you before they reached me.
I stopped breathing.
Marco read over my shoulder.
Lily sat on the floor nearby drawing with Rachel.
I kept reading.
Lily is not my biological daughter.
But she is ours in every way that matters.
Her mother is my sister, Sophie Crane.
Victor told the world Sophie died when she was fourteen.
She did not.
I looked at Marco.
“Fourteen?”
His jaw tightened.
The letter continued.
He kept her hidden because Sophie witnessed the death of our mother.
She knew it was not an accident.
Victor believed a child could be controlled.
He was wrong.
Years later, Sophie escaped.
She came to me.
She was pregnant.
She begged me to protect the baby.
My eyes blurred.
I turned the page.
The night Lily was born, Victor found us.
The hospital records were altered before Sophie and Lily were discharged.
Sophie disappeared.
Lily became legally recorded as my daughter.
Victor believed this would protect him because no official record connected Lily to Sophie.
I knew one day he would come back.
A medical report was attached.
It confirmed Sophie Crane had delivered a healthy baby girl at 1:08 a.m.
Name at birth:
EVELYN SOPHIE CRANE.
Later changed to:
LILY AMELIA REED.
I sank into the rocking chair.
“My daughter’s name was changed.”
Marco corrected me quietly.
“Her legal identity was changed.”
“She’s still my daughter.”
“Yes.”
I looked through the documents.
Then I found something worse.
A second DNA report.
PATERNAL MATCH: 99.97%.
I stared at the name.
“No.”
Marco took the page.
His face hardened.
Lily’s biological father was listed as:
NOAH MERCER.
I knew that name.
Every American over thirty knew it.
Noah Mercer had been an investigative journalist.
He disappeared six years earlier while investigating Victor Crane.
His car was found abandoned near a lake.
His body was never recovered.
Marco whispered:
“Sophie and Mercer had a child.”
“And Crane erased her.”
“Looks that way.”
I opened Amelia’s final page.
One sentence had been underlined three times.
If Victor learns Daniel knows who Lily is, he will not stop until everyone connected to Sophie is gone.
A sound came from the doorway.
Lily stood there.
She had heard us.
Her little face looked confused.
“Daddy?”
I closed the papers.
She walked closer.
“Am I not your real daughter?”
My heart shattered.
I dropped to my knees.
“You are my real daughter.”
“But that paper—”
“Paper doesn’t decide that.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Then who is Sophie?”
I pulled her into my arms.
Before I could answer, Marco’s phone rang.
He listened.
His face changed.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“The police found a woman.”
“Who?”
“At an abandoned Crane property forty miles north.”
May you like
He swallowed.
“She says her name is Sophie.”
