Chapter 4 - THE FATHER WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEADJason told me his father died in a boating accident when he was seventeen.
He told the story often.
Usually at charity dinners, when wealthy guests asked how a man from such humble beginnings had built a fortune.
"My father died young," he'd say, lifting his champagne glass. "Everything I've achieved, I've achieved without anyone handing me a thing."
People admired him for it.
I did, too.
I used to squeeze his hand beneath the table, proud of the strength I'd believed he possessed.
Now I sat in a borrowed apartment, listening to a doctor tell me that Jason's supposedly dead father had been present during the worst days of my life.
"His name is Charles Mitchell," Dr. Price explained.
"He practiced medicine until his license was suspended in the late nineties."
"For what?"
"Falsifying medical records and prescribing controlled medication outside accepted medical practice."
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know."
"Did you ever report what happened at Blackwood House?"
Silence.
Then Dr. Price said, "I tried."
My stomach tightened.
"What happened?"
"My hospital received a legal demand from Mitchell Development's attorneys. They claimed you had sustained injuries during an accident on private property and that our original records contained inaccurate information supplied by an unauthorized witness."
"That doesn't explain why the records changed."
"No," he replied. "It doesn't."
He sounded ashamed.
"The hospital's administration opened an internal review. I refused to amend my notes. Other entries were altered by people who weren't present during your treatment."
"Did you report it?"
"I raised objections. I documented them. Eventually, I resigned."
I stared at the opposite wall.
"And nobody investigated?"
"Not effectively. The hospital retained an outside law firm. The matter became tangled in lawsuits and confidentiality disputes. By the time anyone began asking serious questions, the relevant witnesses had disappeared or changed their statements."
He paused.
"Emily, I'm not proud of how little I accomplished."
I closed my eyes.
For ten years, I had believed my injuries were too complicated to explain.
Too ugly to discuss.
Too embarrassing to expose.
But other people had known.
Some had tried to help.
Some had looked away.
And some had actively helped Jason hide the truth.
"Why are you coming forward now?" I asked.
"Because I saw a photograph from today's hearing."
I said nothing.
"And because your attorney provided evidence that the incident at Blackwood House involved more than a single patient."
Rebecca.
My throat tightened.
"You knew about my sister?"
"I knew a young woman had died around the same time you were brought to the hospital. I didn't know the connection until recently."
I gripped the telephone.
"Dr. Price, I need to ask you something."
"Go ahead."
"When I arrived at the hospital, was I conscious?"
He hesitated.
"Intermittently."
"Did I say anything?"
"Several things."
"Please tell me."
I heard papers moving.
Then he read from his original notes.
"Patient repeatedly asks for younger sister. States, 'He took the papers.' Reports being locked in a room. Expresses fear of a person identified as Charles."
I felt cold.
"Anything else?"
"Yes."
I waited.
"You asked us not to let your husband near you."
My breath stopped.
"And yet Jason was beside my bed when I woke up."
"I know."
"How?"
The doctor didn't answer immediately.
"When he arrived, he was accompanied by a man claiming to be your legal representative. They produced documents authorizing your husband to make medical decisions while you were incapacitated."
"Documents I signed?"
"That's what they claimed."
I stared at my hands.
I had no memory of signing anything.
But I remembered Jason holding my hand in the hospital.
His voice gentle.
His eyes worried.
I'm here, sweetheart. Everything's going to be okay.
Had he been comforting me?
Or making certain I didn't remember what he'd done?
I thanked Dr. Price and ended the call.
Then I sat motionless.
Ten years.
Ten years of believing I had suffered a terrible accident.
Ten years of allowing Jason to control my medical appointments because he said I couldn't handle stressful decisions.
Ten years of accepting that my memory problems were a natural consequence of trauma.
And every time I questioned him, he accused me of being ungrateful.
I opened my laptop.
Typed Charles Mitchell's name.
The search results included old licensing records, a newspaper article about disciplinary proceedings, and a faded photograph from the early 1990s.
I clicked the photograph.
A tall man stood beside a hospital administrator.
Silver hair.
Sharp nose.
Narrow eyes.
I stared.
Then I enlarged the image.
My heart began hammering.
I knew that face.
Not from Blackwood House.
From my own wedding.
Ten years ago, a distinguished older man had approached Jason during our reception.
He'd introduced himself as an old family friend.
I remembered because he had studied me with unsettling intensity.
"Take good care of my boy," he'd said.
I'd laughed.
"I promise."
Jason had appeared furious when he saw us talking.
He'd pulled the man away and whispered something sharply.
Later, when I asked who he was, Jason said he was a distant relative.
A cousin.
Someone he'd invited out of obligation.
I had forgotten the encounter.
Until now.
I called Daniel.
He answered immediately.
"Emily?"
"Jason's father is alive."
There was a pause.
"Tell me everything."
I explained the photograph, the wedding, and Dr. Price's account.
Daniel listened.
When I finished, he said, "Don't contact Charles Mitchell."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good. I've arranged for investigators to review the Blackwood evidence. And we've received a response concerning the Greenwich property."
My heart quickened.
"What response?"
"Jason's counsel is seeking to lift restrictions on access to the greenhouse. They claim it contains business records necessary to protect company operations."
"He's trying to get to the desk."
"Possibly."
"Daniel, we need to get there first."
"We need to do it legally."
"I understand."
"An investigator is seeking the appropriate authorization. I don't want anything compromised because we acted too quickly."
I exhaled.
"Okay."
"But there's another development."
"What?"
"The package you received in April wasn't mailed through an ordinary residential delivery route."
I sat straighter.
"How do you know?"
"The tracking information links to a private shipping service. We're trying to identify the sender."
I thought about Rebecca's necklace.
Someone had kept it safe for ten years.
Someone had known enough to contact me after all that time.
"Could it have been Margaret?"
"Possibly."
"Then we need to visit her."
"I agree. I'm working with a Vermont attorney to arrange contact."
After the call, I examined the old photographs on my laptop.
Jason and me on our wedding day.
Rebecca standing beside me in a sapphire-blue dress.
My mother smiling beneath a flower-covered arch.
I stopped at a photograph taken during the reception.
There was Charles Mitchell.
Standing beside a window.
Watching us.
And beside him—
A woman with dark hair.
Margaret Cole.
She wore a navy dress and held a small black purse.
I zoomed closer.
Margaret wasn't watching the wedding.
She was watching Rebecca.
And Rebecca was staring straight back.
I felt something inside me shift.
Those two women had known each other before Blackwood House.
Maybe they'd been working together.
Maybe Margaret had been Rebecca's source.
I sent the photograph to Daniel.
Then another thought struck me.
If Charles had attended our wedding, he could have attended other family events.
I began searching through albums saved on my computer.
Birthday parties.
Anniversaries.
Holiday dinners.
Photographs taken at the company headquarters.
There he was again.
At a Christmas party in 2017.
At a charity fundraiser in 2019.
At Jason's company anniversary celebration in 2022.
Sometimes he wore glasses.
Sometimes his hair was darker.
But the face was unmistakable.
Jason's dead father had been standing in plain sight for years.
And nobody had ever questioned him.
At ten thirty that evening, someone knocked on my apartment door.
Three quiet taps.
I froze.
Daniel had told me not to answer unexpected visitors.
I walked silently toward the entrance.
"Who is it?"
A woman's voice answered.
"Emily? My name is Laura Bennett."
I didn't move.
"Daniel Reed sent me. I'm with the support organization."
I checked the verification number Daniel had given me and called the organization's emergency line.
They confirmed Laura's identity.
Only then did I open the door.
A woman in her early sixties stood outside carrying a grocery bag.
She had warm brown eyes and short gray hair.
"I'm sorry to come so late," she said. "I wanted to make sure you had something to eat."
I almost cried.
Nobody had asked whether I'd eaten all day.
Laura brought soup, bread, fruit, and a small container of homemade cookies.
She didn't ask about my marriage.
Didn't stare at the scars visible near my collar.
Didn't tell me what I should have done sooner.
She simply set the groceries on the counter.
"You're safe here tonight," she said.
I wanted to believe her.
While we ate, she told me the organization helped women rebuild after coercive and violent relationships.
Housing.
Employment.
Counseling.
Legal referrals.
Practical assistance with the things most people take for granted.
"Sometimes," she said, "starting over begins with something as small as choosing what you'll have for breakfast."
I looked at the soup in my hands.
For years, Jason had decided what I ate.
Where I went.
Who I saw.
Whether I was allowed to work.
Now the ordinary freedom of deciding what to eat felt almost overwhelming.
After Laura left, I washed the dishes.
Then I returned to my laptop.
There was one final photograph I'd avoided examining.
Rebecca and me.
Taken four days before she died.
We were sitting on the porch of our childhood home.
She had her arm around my shoulders.
I was laughing.
It was the last photograph of us together.
I enlarged it.
For the first time, I noticed a folded piece of paper sticking out of Rebecca's jacket pocket.
Only the upper corner was visible.
But there was writing on it.
Three words.
HOLLOW CREEK FOUNDATION
I frowned.
I'd heard that name before.
It was a charitable foundation Jason established after my accident.
Every year, he donated money to it.
Every year, newspapers praised his generosity.
And every year, he insisted I attend its fundraising gala.
I typed the name into the search bar.
A nonprofit filing appeared.
Then another.
The registered office address was familiar.
It was the address of a small medical rehabilitation center in Vermont.
The same center where Vanessa claimed her mother had been living.
My hands went cold.
I clicked the list of directors.
There were three names.
Jason Mitchell.
Richard Bellamy.
And Charles Mitchell.
My husband's father.
The man who was supposed to be dead.
I leaned back slowly.
The foundation wasn't just a charity.
It linked Jason, his lawyer, his father, and Vanessa's missing mother.
I took screenshots of everything.
Then I found the organization's annual financial statement.
One line caught my attention.
Private Residential Services — $486,000
Nearly half a million dollars in one year.
For a facility that advertised basic assisted living.
I kept reading.
The payments weren't made directly to the rehabilitation center.
They went through a company called Northstar Patient Management.
I searched its corporate registration.
The registered agent was a name I didn't recognize.
But the mailing address was in Greenwich.
Less than two miles from our mansion.
I typed the address into an online map.
A small brick office building appeared.
I recognized it immediately.
Jason used to take me there for medical appointments.
He'd told me the building housed a private neurologist who specialized in memory disorders.
I felt sick.
Because I remembered those appointments.
The questions.
The injections.
The way I sometimes woke up with hours missing.
And the reassuring words Jason repeated afterward.
Your condition is getting worse, sweetheart.
You have to trust me.
My telephone buzzed.
Daniel had sent a message.
We identified the sender of Rebecca's package. Call me as soon as you can.
I called.
He answered on the first ring.
"Emily, are you sitting down?"
"Yes."
"The package came from a woman named Helen Foster."
I frowned.
"I don't know her."
"She worked at Blackwood House ten years ago."
"What did she do?"
Daniel hesitated.
"She was the housekeeper."
I closed my eyes.
A memory surfaced.
A woman entering a locked room with a tray.
A woman whispering, Don't drink anything they bring you.
A woman slipping a folded towel into my hands.
I opened my eyes.
"Daniel, I remember her."
He exhaled.
"Then there's something you need to hear."
"What?"
"Helen Foster was found dead yesterday morning."
The room seemed to lose all its air.
"Dead?"
"Police are investigating. No cause has been confirmed."
I stared at the wall.
Someone had sent me Rebecca's belongings.
Someone had waited ten years to tell the truth.
And now that woman was dead.
Daniel's next words were even worse.
"Emily, investigators found a note in her apartment."
I gripped the phone.
"What did it say?"
He took a breath.
"She wrote, 'If anything happens to me, tell Emily the second box isn't the only thing hidden in the greenhouse.'"
I didn't speak.
Then Daniel continued.
"Underneath, she wrote one more sentence."
"What sentence?"
He read it slowly.
THE GIRL IN ROOM SEVENTEEN DID NOT DIE.
For ten years, I had believed Rebecca was gone.
May you like
Now somebody was telling me a woman survived Blackwood House.
A woman whose identity could change everything.
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