Chapter 4 - WHAT WAS BENEATH THE FLOOR
The basement floor had been recently repaired.
That was the first thing the forensic team noticed.
The concrete was newer than the rest.
They opened it carefully.
I wasn't there when they did.
I was at the hospital with my father.
But Detective Collins called at 2:13 in the morning.
“We found something.”
My heart pounded.
“What?”
“Personal belongings.”
“Whose?”
“Claire's.”
I couldn't speak.
They found her driver's license.
Her wedding ring.
Her purse.
And a diary.
The diary was the worst.
Claire had written about everything.
Margaret controlling her money.
Andrew monitoring her phone.
The family insisting she quit her job.
The threats.
The lies.
Then came the final entry.
I know what they did to the woman before me.
She tried to escape.
They said she died in an accident.
I am next.
I felt sick.
“Did she write where she was going?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know what happened?”
“We found something else.”
Detective Collins sent me a photograph.
A page torn from the diary.
Claire had written:
If I disappear, look at the insurance records.
I immediately remembered my own policy.
Margaret was the beneficiary.
“How many women had insurance policies?”
“We're checking.”
The next morning, investigators found six.
Six women.
Six policies.
Six marriages.
Four women had disappeared.
Two had left the state.
All had been financially dependent on Andrew's family.
My father stared at the documents.
“This wasn't a marriage.”
“No,” I said.
“It was a system.”
That afternoon, Andrew's attorney contacted me.
He requested a private meeting.
I refused.
Then he sent a message.
You don't know the whole truth about your husband.
I almost deleted it.
Instead, I forwarded it to Detective Collins.
An hour later, the attorney called again.
“Your husband wants to speak to you.”
“Why?”
“He says you're in danger.”
I laughed bitterly.
“I'm already in a hospital bed because of him.”
“He says Margaret is not the person you think she is.”
I stared at the wall.
“What does that mean?”
“He says she has been doing this long before he was born.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Long before Andrew was born.
Detective Collins began digging into Margaret's past.
She discovered something unexpected.
Margaret had been married twice before.
Both husbands died.
Both deaths were ruled accidental.
Both had insurance policies.
Both policies named Margaret as beneficiary.
Then they found a third name.
A woman.
Evelyn Hart.
Margaret's sister.
Evelyn had disappeared twenty-five years earlier.
No body.
No investigation.
Just a closed missing-person report.
My father suddenly became quiet.
“Diana.”
“What?”
“What's your mother's maiden name?”
I told him.
He looked at Detective Collins.
“That's impossible.”
“What?”
He showed us an old newspaper clipping.
It was about Evelyn Hart.
The photograph was damaged.
But I could see the face.
My mother.
I stared.
My father whispered:
“Your mother had a sister.”
I shook my head.
“My mother was an only child.”
He looked at me.
“That's what she told us.”
Then Detective Collins found the birth certificate.
My mother's real name was Evelyn Hart.
Margaret's sister.
The room went silent.
Margaret hadn't chosen me randomly.
May you like
She had chosen me because of my mother.
And suddenly the entire nightmare became personal.
