Chapter 3 - THE FIRST KYLIE
The woman who called herself Claire refused to enter my apartment until the lobby attendant confirmed that no one had followed her.
Even then, she kept looking over her shoulder.
We sat inside a private meeting room on the building’s second floor. Olivia joined us through a video call while Claire placed a thick envelope on the table.
“I was born Kylie Bennett,” she began. “Diane changed my name after she gave me away.”
“Why would she tell everyone you died?” I asked.
“Because I was evidence.”
Claire had spent the first five years of her life with a foster family in Ohio. She had been told that her biological mother was a teenager who could not care for her.
At six, she was adopted by Thomas and Elaine Parker, who renamed her Claire.
She had a stable childhood, attended college, married, and eventually became a nurse.
Then, at twenty-seven, she requested her sealed adoption records for medical reasons.
The court denied her petition.
Three years later, a clerk secretly mailed her a partial file.
Inside was Diane’s name.
Richard was listed as the alleged father.
“I contacted Diane,” Claire said. “At first, she denied everything. Then Richard called me.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He offered me fifty thousand dollars to stop investigating.”
“Did you take it?”
“No.”
Her scar tightened as she swallowed.
“Two weeks later, someone forced my car off the highway.”
The crash killed Claire’s husband and left her hospitalized for months.
Police ruled it an accident.
While Claire was recovering, an attorney representing an anonymous client offered to pay her medical expenses if she signed a nondisclosure agreement.
The payment came from K&R Residential Holdings.
“The same company that took my trust,” I said.
Claire nodded.
“I signed because I had no insurance and no family left. But I never stopped searching.”
“Why contact me now?”
“Because your father’s video went viral in our hometown. I recognized you immediately.”
She slid several photographs across the table.
One showed Richard in his twenties standing beside Margaret outside Rose’s lake house.
Another showed Diane, visibly pregnant, watching them from a porch.
A third showed a newborn wrapped in a hospital blanket.
On the back, Rose had written:
Kylie Rose Bennett. Born March 14. Forgive me for failing you.
“Rose knew you survived,” I said.
“She discovered the adoption years later. She hired a private investigator, but Richard threatened to expose an illegal payment she had made to the doctor who delivered me.”
“What payment?”
“The doctor had falsified my death certificate.”
Olivia leaned closer to her screen. “Do you have a copy?”
Claire removed several documents from the envelope.
The death certificate claimed Baby Kylie Bennett had died from respiratory failure two hours after birth.
The adoption paperwork showed that the same child had been transferred alive to a private agency the following morning.
Both documents carried the signature of Dr. Samuel Voss.
I recognized the name.
Dr. Voss had been my childhood pediatrician.
He had also signed my delayed birth certificate.
Claire explained that Margaret discovered the truth while organizing Rose’s company records.
Richard had impregnated Diane when she was seventeen and arranged the illegal adoption to protect himself from criminal charges and public disgrace.
Later, he began dating Margaret because he wanted access to Rose’s growing property business.
“When Margaret learned what he had done to Diane, she threatened to report him,” Claire said. “But by then, she was pregnant with you.”
My stomach twisted.
“Richard was my biological father too?”
“No.”
The answer came so quickly that I stared at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because that was the secret Margaret died protecting.”
Claire opened a smaller envelope.
Inside was a letter written by Margaret three days before her disappearance.
Emma’s father is Daniel Mercer. Richard knows. He believes Daniel will return for her and expose everything. Diane is helping Richard because she thinks he will finally marry her if I disappear.
Daniel Mercer.
The name meant nothing to me.
Olivia began searching public records while Claire continued.
Daniel had been a financial investigator hired by Rose after money disappeared from one of her companies. He and Margaret fell in love, but Richard discovered the relationship.
Daniel left town temporarily to gather evidence against Richard.
Before he could return, he died in a warehouse fire.
The fire had been ruled accidental.
“Was it?” I asked.
Claire’s eyes dropped.
“No.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because Margaret recorded Richard admitting he started it.”
The audio clip in my locket had been only one piece of a longer recording.
Margaret had hidden copies of Richard’s financial ledger and the recording somewhere at the lake house.
On the night she disappeared, she intended to meet a federal investigator.
She never arrived.
“Do you know who has been emailing me?” I asked.
Claire shook her head.
“I hoped it was Linda.”
“It wasn’t.”
Olivia interrupted.
“I found Daniel Mercer.”
We both turned toward the screen.
“He didn’t die in the warehouse fire.”
Claire’s face lost its color.
“What?”
“The victim was identified through dental records supplied by Dr. Samuel Voss. But Daniel Mercer’s social-security number was used eighteen months later in Montana.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“I don’t know. The trail ends after 1998.”
A loud bang echoed from the hallway.
Claire jumped.
Someone had struck the meeting-room door.
The handle turned once, then stopped.
I called building security.
By the time guards arrived, the corridor was empty.
Surveillance footage showed a man wearing a baseball cap and maintenance uniform entering through the loading entrance.
He had disabled the camera nearest the meeting room.
As the guards reviewed the footage, Claire’s phone rang.
The display showed a blocked number.
She answered cautiously.
A distorted male voice said, “You should have stayed dead.”
Then the call ended.
Claire began shaking.
I wanted to call the police immediately, but she grabbed my wrist.
“No local officers. Richard has friends in the department. That is how he buried the crash investigation.”
Olivia suggested contacting a federal prosecutor she trusted.
Before we could decide, my mother called from Linda’s phone.
I answered.
“Emma,” Mom said, crying. “Your father knows you spoke to Claire.”
“How?”
“He checked my messages.”
“Why did you help him hide her?”
“I was seventeen.”
“You were not seventeen when Margaret disappeared.”
Silence.
“You were not seventeen when you stole my inheritance.”
“I did what I had to do to keep you safe.”
“Safe from whom?”
“Richard.”
The answer stunned me.
“You married him.”
“I thought I could control him.”
“You helped him.”
“I know.”
Her voice broke.
Then she whispered, “He is going to the lake house tonight.”
“Why?”
“To burn it down.”
I stood so quickly that the chair scraped across the floor.
“What is hidden there?”
“The ledger. Margaret’s recording. Everything Rose collected.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Rose hid it after Margaret vanished.”
“Then why is Dad going?”
“Because your locket was the key.”
I touched the necklace beneath my blouse.
“What do you mean?”
“The engraving inside it is not a message. It is a combination.”
Before Mom could explain, a man shouted behind her.
The phone struck something hard.
I heard Dad say, “Who are you talking to?”
Mom screamed.
The call ended.
We contacted emergency services, but when police reached my parents’ house, no one was there.
Dad’s car was gone.
So was Mom.
Kylie posted a photograph from a rooftop café less than an hour later, complaining that her family had ruined her week.
She apparently knew nothing.
Claire, Olivia, and I drove toward the lake house with a federal agent named Marcus Hale following in an unmarked vehicle.
The property stood two hours north of the city, surrounded by dense pine forest.
We were ten miles away when flames appeared against the night sky.
By the time we reached the driveway, the brick house was burning.
Dad stood near the garage, dragging Mom toward his car.
Agent Hale drew his weapon.
“Richard Bennett! Step away from her!”
Dad froze.
Mom tore herself free and ran toward us.
Then a gunshot shattered the night.
Agent Hale dropped behind his vehicle.
Claire screamed.
Dad disappeared into the smoke.
Mom clutched my arms.
“The cellar!” she gasped. “The evidence is in the cellar!”
Behind her, the house groaned as part of the roof collapsed.
May you like
Then we heard pounding from beneath the burning floor.
Someone was trapped underground.
