Chapter 7 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Sophie Crane was alive.
We drove north under police escort.
Lily stayed with Rachel and two officers.
The property was an old hunting lodge surrounded by forest.
A thin woman sat inside an ambulance.
She looked thirty.
Maybe older.
Dark hair.
Green eyes.
The same eyes as Lily.
My knees nearly failed.
“Sophie?”
She looked up.
Her face collapsed.
“Daniel.”
“You know me?”
“Amelia showed me pictures.”
I sat beside her.
“Where have you been?”
She looked toward the officers.
“Running.”
“For six years?”
“Longer.”
Marco crouched beside us.
“Did Victor hold you?”
Sophie laughed bitterly.
“My father doesn’t hold people.”
She looked at me.
“He erases them.”
She told us everything.
At fourteen, she had witnessed Victor arguing with her mother, Margaret.
Margaret threatened to expose financial crimes.
Hours later, Margaret’s car crashed.
Sophie heard Victor tell a security chief to “finish what the road didn’t.”
Sophie secretly recorded part of the conversation.
Victor discovered it.
Two weeks later, the public was told Sophie died in a boating accident.
In reality, she was sent to a private psychiatric facility under another name.
“No visitors.”
Her voice shook.
“No school.”
“No phone.”
“How did you escape?”
“Noah.”
The journalist.
He found discrepancies in Victor’s records.
He traced her.
Helped her escape.
They fell in love while hiding.
Then Sophie became pregnant.
“Lily,” I said.
She nodded.
“Evelyn.”
My chest tightened.
“Why did Amelia rename her?”
“To hide her.”
“From Victor?”
“Yes.”
“And Noah?”
Sophie looked away.
“My father found him first.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco asked, “What happened the night Lily was born?”
Sophie closed her eyes.
“I delivered at St. Matthew’s under Amelia’s protection.”
“Victor owned it.”
“We didn’t know he still controlled the staff.”
She wiped tears from her face.
“He came into my room.”
“Victor?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me I had two choices.”
She looked at me.
“Give him the baby and disappear forever…”
“Or?”
“He would kill Amelia.”
My hands curled.
“So you gave Lily to Amelia.”
“I begged her to take her.”
Tears rolled down Sophie’s face.
“She promised Lily would grow up loved.”
I turned away.
Amelia had carried that secret alone.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because you would have fought.”
“She knew me.”
“Yes.”
Sophie almost smiled.
“That was the problem.”
Marco’s phone buzzed.
He checked a message from his security team.
Then another.
“What is it?”
He showed me.
A photograph had arrived from an unknown number.
Rachel’s house.
Taken from across the street.
Lily could be seen through the window.
Below the photograph was one line:
YOU FOUND SOPHIE. NOW WE TAKE THE GIRL BACK.
Sophie grabbed my arm.
“No.”
Her nails dug into my skin.
“Daniel, listen to me.”
“What?”
“My father doesn’t want Lily dead.”
“Then what does he want?”
Sophie’s face went white.
“He wants her eighteen.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Because on her eighteenth birthday…”
May you like
She looked at Marco.
“…she inherits everything he stole from my mother.”
