Chapter 11 - Candice’s Other HouseThe laboratory fire was small and contained.
No samples were destroyed because police had placed duplicates in separate evidence storage.
The interruption proved someone still had access to the investigation’s timing.
Nora suspected Candice received information through an employee at Evelyn’s law office, the hospital, or the police department.
Gabriel began questioning every recent call.
Candice had spent sixteen years surviving through other people’s credentials.
There was no reason to believe she had stopped.
Wyatt’s message contained hidden location data. It pointed toward a rental house in Dublin, a suburb outside Columbus.
The property had been leased under Anna’s false name, Evelyn Shaw.
Nora obtained a search warrant.
The modest house looked unoccupied from outside.
Inside, investigators found children’s furniture, family photographs, and clothing in Lucas’s and Wyatt’s sizes.
Candice had built a duplicate home.
One bedroom matched Lucas’s room almost exactly.
Another matched Wyatt’s.
A dining table held four place settings.
In the hallway, a framed photograph showed Candice, Gabriel, Lucas, and Wyatt together.
Gabriel’s face had been digitally taken from another picture.
Candice had created the image of a family she could control completely.
The basement contained recording equipment linked to cameras inside Gabriel’s real house.
She had watched them remotely.
She stored edited clips showing Lucas shouting, Wyatt crying, and Gabriel losing his temper during ordinary arguments.
The footage could be assembled into a false history of family violence.
Nora found a prepared documentary labeled:
GABRIEL HART—UNFIT FATHER.
Candice intended to claim she rescued both boys from him.
Another file contained school applications under new names.
Lucas would become Liam Shaw.
Wyatt would become Noah Shaw.
Candice planned to disappear with both after gaining control of the trusts.
“Then why abuse Lucas?” Gabriel asked.
Nora looked at the staged evaluations.
“To make him dependent, discredited, and easier to transport.”
Candice did not want one boy over the other.
She wanted control of both assets.
A locked cabinet contained medication bottles bearing Anna’s name, forged passports, and dozens of handwritten notes.
One note was from Candice.
Wyatt believes Gabriel hates him. Lucas believes Wyatt chose this. Keep them divided until the combined distribution.
The combined distribution occurred when both boys turned eighteen.
If they remained legally separate, each controlled only part of the company.
If one guardian could prove authority over both, the trusts merged into a controlling stake.
Candice needed both sons.
The house also contained a live monitor.
A red dot moved along a highway toward Indiana.
The tracker label read CANDICE.
She had forgotten that her own vehicle’s emergency system remained connected to the duplicate house.
Police followed the signal.
The vehicle stopped at a roadside motel.
By the time officers arrived, it was empty.
A hotel camera showed Candice leaving in another car with a teenage passenger.
Wyatt stood beside Gabriel when Nora showed the image.
“That isn’t me.”
The passenger looked exactly like him from a distance.
Same height.
Same hair.
Same jacket.
Gabriel enlarged the frame.
The boy turned slightly.
He had a crescent-shaped scar near his temple and wore a hospital identification bracelet.
Candice had found another teenager who resembled Wyatt.
On the motel bed, police discovered a third trust file.
It named another male child born on the same day as Lucas and Wyatt.
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BABY C—STATUS UNRESOLVED.
👉 Candice’s duplicate house exposed her plan to control both twins, but a third birth file suggested another child had disappeared from the same hospital.
