Chapter 10 - THE BLOOD ON THE FLOOR
For three seconds, nobody moved.
Then everything exploded into chaos.
“DOWN!”
Detective Reed pushed me behind a concrete pillar.
Mason screamed in my arms.
Another gunshot shattered a window.
Police returned fire.
Vanessa was lying on the floor.
Blood spread across her coat.
I crawled toward her.
“Don't!”
Detective Reed grabbed me.
“She may be alive.”
“She knows where my husband is!”
He looked at the wounded woman.
“Paramedics!”
They rushed in.
Vanessa was alive.
Barely.
Before they carried her away, she grabbed my wrist.
Her fingers were cold.
She whispered:
“Your house…”
“What?”
“Basement.”
I froze.
“What about my basement?”
“Look behind the wall.”
Then she lost consciousness.
Detective Reed looked at me.
“Your house again.”
I nodded.
But suddenly I remembered something.
My basement wall.
There was an old section of drywall behind the furnace.
My husband had always told me never to touch it.
He had called it storage.
I had never questioned him.
Now I wondered why.
Police searched the warehouse.
They found no shooter.
But they found something else.
A file cabinet.
Inside were dozens of folders.
Families.
Names.
Children.
Medical histories.
Photographs.
And one folder marked:
RUSSELL FAMILY — COMPLETE
I couldn't look away.
Inside was my photograph.
Thomas's.
Mason's.
And my husband's.
Then I found a page dated twelve years earlier.
It listed my husband's death.
But beside his name was a handwritten note:
SUBJECT REFUSED TERMINATION.
I felt sick.
“What does that mean?”
Detective Reed stared at the page.
“I don't know.”
I flipped to the next page.
There was a photograph of my husband.
He was sitting in a hospital bed.
Alive.
Connected to machines.
The date was two days after his supposed funeral.
I began crying.
“He was alive.”
Thomas stood beside me.
“Mom…”
“He was alive.”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“No.”
I turned toward him.
“You knew something.”
He shook his head.
“I swear I didn't know Dad survived.”
“Then why did you say you found payments after he died?”
“Because I did.”
“To Vanessa?”
“Yes.”
“Then what were the payments for?”
Thomas stared at the floor.
“I thought they were paying her to treat Dad.”
“And?”
“They weren't.”
“What were they paying her for?”
He didn't answer.
Detective Reed found another document.
He read it silently.
Then looked at Thomas.
“Your father wasn't the only one who received payments.”
Thomas went pale.
“Who else?”
Detective Reed turned the page.
“Your mother.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“There are payments made to an account under Helen Russell.”
I shook my head.
“I never received money.”
He showed me the dates.
Payments had been made for years.
Some while I was married.
Some after my husband's death.
I recognized the bank account number.
It was mine.
But I had never seen those deposits.
Then Thomas whispered:
“Mom…”
“What?”
“That isn't your account.”
“What?”
He pointed at the last four digits.
“They opened another account using your identity.”
My blood ran cold.
Someone had been using my name for years.
And according to the records…
that account had received money from the same organization that had been studying my family.
Then Detective Reed found the final page.
It contained one sentence.
IF HELEN EVER DISCOVERS THE TRUTH, ACTIVATE CONTINGENCY PLAN.
Underneath it was a name.
Not Thomas.
Not Ellie.
Not Vanessa.
Not my husband.
A name I recognized immediately.
My daughter.
Sarah.
My youngest child.
The daughter who had called me every Sunday for fifteen years.
The daughter who had been strangely distant since Mason was born.
The daughter who had been at my house the night before.
I stared at the page.
“No.”
Thomas looked at me.
“Mom?”
I whispered:
“Sarah couldn't be involved.”
But deep inside, something terrible had already begun to change.
Because I suddenly remembered her last words to me.
Mom, don't ask too many questions.
At the time, I thought she was worried about me.
Now I wondered…
May you like
if she had been warning me—
or threatening me.
