Chapter 11
Not from the side entrance.
From inside the warehouse.
Clara’s face drained of color. “I locked the door.”
Daniel switched off his flashlight and gestured for silence.
A voice echoed faintly from above.
Ethan.
“Maya?” he called. “I know you’re here.”
My heart lurched.
Then another voice followed, calm and female.
Vivian Hale.
“Check the wall,” she said. “Samuel would have hidden it where Elise told him to.”
Daniel’s hand moved toward his phone.
Naomi whispered, “Police. Now.”
But before she could dial, a third voice drifted down through the ceiling.
A man’s voice.
Unfamiliar.
Older.
Angry.
“You said the girl didn’t know anything.”
Vivian answered coldly.
“She wasn’t supposed to.”
The hidden room seemed to shrink around me.
Daniel’s face had gone pale in a way I had not seen before.
“You know him,” I whispered.
He did not answer.
The footsteps above moved closer to the false wall.
Then the unknown man spoke again, and this time his words turned my blood to ice.
“Find the Mercer file first. If Maya reads it, she’ll know Daniel isn’t who her father thought he was.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
And in that instant, I understood the worst part of secrets.
May you like
They don’t end when the door opens.
Sometimes, that’s when they begin.
