Sarah was sitting on the sofa. But she wasn’t alone. Sitting across from her was her mother, Eleanor, sipping a cup of tea. And sitting next to Eleanor was a man I hadn’t seen in five years. A man whose face was etched into my nightmares.
It was Doctor Vance.
The three of them stopped talking the moment I entered. The room fell into an icy, dead silence. Doctor Vance looked nervous, sweating profusely through his expensive suit. Eleanor looked cold and calculating.
Sarah looked up at me. The sweet, innocent smile she usually wore was completely gone. Her eyes were cold, sharp, and predatory.
On the coffee table between them lay a piece of paper. As I walked closer, my blood ran cold. It was the printed copy of the DNA test results I had left in my car’s glove compartment.
Sarah stood up slowly, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked at me not with fear, but with a terrifying, malicious amusement.
“Looking for this, Arthur?” she asked, her voice dropping the sweet act entirely, replaced by a venomous, mocking tone.
I froze, realizing my mistake. I had forgotten to lock the glove compartment when I came home to change out of my work clothes earlier.
“You went to a small restaurant in Oak Creek three days ago, didn’t you?” Eleanor said, her voice dripping with aristocratic disdain. “You met Martha. You took hair samples. You thought you were so clever, Arthur.”
Doctor Vance stood up, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. “Arthur, you should have just kept mourning. It was safer for everyone if those babies stayed dead to you.”
I reached slowly into my pocket, trying to grab my phone to call Marcus, but before my fingers could touch the screen, the front door behind me clicked locked.
I spun around. Standing behind me was a tall, heavily built man in a dark suit—someone I had never seen before. He had one hand inside his jacket, clearly holding a weapon.
I was trapped. In my own home. With the monsters who had stolen my children.
Sarah walked up to me, stopping just inches away. She reached up and gently patted my cheek, her touch feeling like a slithering snake.
“You really shouldn’t have dug up the past, honey,” Sarah whispered, a cruel, psychotic smile spreading across her lips. “Because now, we can’t just let you leave. And unfortunately for you, people die of sudden, tragic accidents all the time…”
The large man stepped forward, pulling a silenced pistol from his jacket.
