Chapter 6: The Woman Who Refused to Die
Chapter 6: The Woman Who Refused to Die
Three days later.
Victoria Hayes sat inside a maximum-security detention facility.
Her lawyers were scrambling.
The media was everywhere.
And prosecutors were preparing enough charges to keep her behind bars for decades.
Yet Victoria wasn't worried.
Not really.
Because she still had one secret.
A secret nobody knew.
Not even Gabriel.
That afternoon, she requested a private meeting.
Only one visitor.
Gabriel Whitmore.
Against everyone's advice, he agreed.
The meeting room was cold.
A steel table separated them.
Victoria looked exhausted.
But when Gabriel entered, she smiled.
The same unsettling smile.
"Why am I here?" he asked.
Victoria leaned back.
"Because you still don't know the truth."
Gabriel's eyes narrowed.
"What truth?"
"The night Emily died."
Silence.
Victoria studied his face.
"You think I killed her."
"Didn't you?"
For several seconds, Victoria said nothing.
Then she surprised him.
"No."
Gabriel froze.
"What?"
"I didn't kill Emily."
The words hit like a bomb.
Gabriel had expected denial.
Not this.
"Then who did?"
Victoria smiled sadly.
"That's the problem."
"It wasn't me."
For the first time, she looked genuinely frightened.
Not manipulative.
Not calculating.
Afraid.
"Gabriel..."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"Emily wasn't afraid of me."
The room seemed to tilt.
"She was afraid of someone else."
Gabriel stared at her.
"What are you talking about?"
Victoria slowly reached into her prison-issued folder and slid a photograph across the table.
Gabriel looked down.
And felt his blood turn to ice.
The picture showed Emily.
Taken two weeks before her death.
She was standing outside a hospital parking garage.
Talking to a man.
A man Gabriel knew very well.
A man he trusted completely.
A man who had been inside his mansion only yesterday.
Mr. Henry.
The butler.
The photograph slipped from Gabriel's fingers.
"No."
Victoria nodded slowly.
"That's exactly what Emily said."
The world suddenly stopped making sense.
Because the one person who had protected Lucia.
The one person who had exposed Victoria.
The one person who had seemed loyal from the beginning...
Had just become the most dangerous suspect of all.
And at that exact moment, back at the Whitmore mansion, Mr. Henry was standing alone in the nursery.
Looking down at Bella and Sophie.
With tears in his eyes.
And a locked wooden box hidden beneath his arm.
A box containing secrets buried for over twenty years.
May you like
Secrets powerful enough to destroy everyone involved.
Including himself.
