PART 4 — THE WOMAN IN THE DARK

The lights went out.
Meredith heard the sound of the locks engaging.
Then came the laughter.
A woman was laughing somewhere beyond the walls.
It was soft.

Almost gentle.
And somehow that made it worse.
Julian immediately reached for Meredith.
“Stay behind me.”
Alexander moved toward the sound.
“Don’t.”

Julian grabbed his arm.
“If that’s who I think it is, walking toward her is exactly what she wants.”
Meredith could barely breathe.
“Who is she?”
Nobody answered.

The laughter stopped.
Then a woman’s voice came from the darkness.
“Meredith.”
She turned toward the sound.
“Who are you?”
A pause.

Then the voice answered,
“Someone your mother loved.”
Robert suddenly whispered,
“Patricia.”
Meredith looked at him.
“What?”
Robert’s face had gone completely white.
“That voice.”

He swallowed.
“I know that voice.”
Julian immediately looked toward him.

“Are you sure?”
Robert nodded.
“I heard it twenty years ago.”
Alexander stepped forward.

“Impossible.”
The woman laughed again.
“You still think I’m dead, Alexander?”
Meredith’s heart slammed against her ribs.

The emergency lights flickered.
For one second, she saw a silhouette standing behind the glass partition.
A woman.
Long dark hair.
A pale face.

And eyes that looked exactly like Patricia’s.
Then the lights died again.
Meredith whispered,
“Mom?”
The woman answered,
“Not quite.”
The emergency system suddenly activated.
Red lights began flashing.

A door opened at the far end of the room.
The woman was gone.
Julian ran toward the doorway.
Alexander followed.
Meredith stayed beside Robert.
He was shaking.
“Dad.”

Robert looked at her.
“Don’t call me that.”
Meredith’s eyes filled with tears.
“You’re still the man who raised me.”
Robert looked away.

“I don’t deserve that anymore.”
“You don’t get to decide what you mean to me.”
He stared at her.
For the first time, Meredith saw the broken man behind the cruel father.
“What happened?”
Robert closed his eyes.

“Your mother made me promise something.”
“What?”
“That if anyone ever came looking for you, I would make them hate me before they could love you.”
Meredith didn’t understand.
“Why would she ask you to do that?”

“Because she knew love could be used against you.”
He looked at her.
“She wanted you to have no weaknesses.”
Meredith’s voice trembled.

“So you spent twenty-nine years making me believe I wasn’t good enough.”
Robert began crying.
“I thought if you hated me, you would stay away from the family.”
“And Allison?”
“She was never part of the plan.”
“What plan?”
Robert shook his head.

“I don’t know anymore.”
A gunshot echoed somewhere in the facility.
Meredith flinched.
Julian returned moments later.

“Alexander!”
Alexander appeared behind him.
“He’s gone.”
Meredith stared.
“Who?”

“The man who was guarding the lower corridor.”
Julian looked at Robert.
“He was killed.”
Robert’s face collapsed.
“They found us.”
Meredith suddenly noticed something on Julian’s sleeve.

Blood.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Then whose is that?”

Julian looked down.
“Not mine.”
A second later, his phone rang.
He answered.
“Vale.”
A voice spoke rapidly.
Julian’s expression changed.
“What?”
He listened.

Then he looked at Meredith.
“Say that again.”
The voice continued.
Julian slowly lowered the phone.
Meredith knew immediately.
“What happened?”
Julian didn’t answer.

“Julian.”
He looked at her.
“Your mother’s medical records were accessed tonight.”
“By whom?”
“They weren’t accessed from a hospital.”
“Then where?”
Julian hesitated.
“From a private archive.”

Meredith frowned.
“What archive?”
Julian looked at Alexander.
“An archive that belonged to Evelyn Shaw.”

Meredith’s heart stopped.
“The woman who wasn’t my mother’s twin.”
Alexander nodded.
“Yes.”
Julian continued.
“Someone just opened her entire file.”
Robert whispered,
“Then she’s alive.”
Meredith turned.
“Who?”
Robert looked toward the dark corridor.
“Evelyn.”
The name seemed to change the temperature of the room.
Meredith remembered the photograph.
Patricia and Evelyn standing together.
Two identical faces.
Two identical smiles.
Except one detail.
Evelyn wore a small silver pendant.
Meredith had seen that pendant before.
Around her mother’s neck.
For years.
She had always thought it belonged to Patricia.

Now she understood.
It had belonged to Evelyn.
Meredith suddenly remembered another memory.
She was eight years old.
Her mother had been crying in the bathroom.

Meredith had knocked on the door.
“Mom?”
A woman’s voice had answered from inside.
“Go away.”
Meredith had walked downstairs.
Robert had been standing in the kitchen.
He had looked terrified.
She had asked,
“Why is Mom crying?”
Robert had said,
“She isn’t your mother right now.”
Meredith had been too young to understand.
Now the memory returned with terrifying clarity.
Someone else had been in that bathroom.
Someone who sounded exactly like Patricia.
Someone who looked exactly like Patricia.
Meredith looked at Robert.
“Evelyn was pretending to be my mother.”
Robert nodded.

“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Because your real mother was hiding.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
Robert looked at Alexander.
Alexander stepped closer.
“I know.”
Meredith turned.
“Where?”
Alexander’s eyes filled with pain.
“Your mother is alive.”
Meredith stopped breathing.

“What?”
Alexander nodded.
“She never died.”
Robert covered his face.
Meredith felt the world tilt.
“You told me she died.”

Alexander shook his head.
“I never told you that.”
“But you knew.”
“I knew she was alive.”
“Where is she?”
Alexander looked at Julian.
Julian answered quietly.
“She has been living under another identity.”
Meredith stared at him.
“For how long?”

“Twenty-nine years.”
Meredith’s knees nearly gave out.
Twenty-nine years.
The exact length of her life.
Her mother had been alive somewhere.

Watching.
Waiting.
Never coming home.
“Why?”
Alexander looked down.
“Because coming home would have gotten you killed.”
Meredith’s voice cracked.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“I expect you to hate me.”
She shook her head.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
Alexander stepped closer.
“I spent twenty-nine years trying to find a safe way to meet you.”
“And tonight?”

“I thought the danger had passed.”
“What changed?”
Alexander looked toward the ceiling.
“Someone inside your family started talking.”
Everyone became silent.
Meredith felt a chill.
“Who?”
Alexander didn’t answer.
Robert did.
“Patricia.”
Meredith stared at him.
“My mother?”
“She contacted someone six months ago.”
“Who?”

Robert’s eyes moved toward Julian.
“Your husband.”
Meredith slowly turned.
Julian’s face was expressionless.
“You knew my mother contacted you?”
“Yes.”

“And you never told me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
Meredith laughed bitterly.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
Julian stepped toward her.
“Meredith—”
“No.”

She raised her hand.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“I need one person to tell me the truth without deciding what I can handle.”
Julian nodded.
“You’re right.”
He reached into his coat.
He pulled out a folded document.
“I should have given you this six months ago.”
Meredith took it.

Her hands trembled as she opened it.
It was a letter.
The handwriting was unmistakable.

Her mother’s.
Meredith read the first line.
My daughter,
If you are reading this, then the people I feared have finally found you.
Her vision blurred.
She continued.
I need you to know one thing before you hear anything else.
I never abandoned you.
I watched you from a distance.
I saw your graduation.
I saw your first apartment.
I saw the photographs of you smiling with people who didn’t deserve you.
I saw your sister’s wedding invitation.

And I saw what your father did to you.
Meredith’s tears fell onto the paper.
The letter continued.
I wanted to come to you that night.
I was standing across the street from the hotel.
But someone was watching me.
I knew that if I walked inside, you would become a target.
So I stayed away.
Meredith stopped reading.

She looked at Julian.
“You knew she was there.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe she was dead.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she asked me to.”
Meredith looked down at the letter again.
The final lines were written shakily.

There is something else you must know.
Your father did not betray me.
Robert saved your life.
But the man you think betrayed us did not die.
He is still searching for you.
And if he finds you before I can reach you, do not trust the first person who says they are your family.

Meredith’s eyes moved to the final sentence.
Because the person who has been closest to you all these years may not be the person you think.
She lowered the letter.

Nobody spoke.
Then her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Again.
Meredith answered.
A man’s voice whispered,
“You’re reading her letter.”
Meredith froze.
“Who is this?”
The voice laughed softly.
“You really don’t recognize me?”

Meredith’s blood went cold.
The man continued.
“I was at your sister’s wedding.”
She looked toward Julian.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”

“Who are you?”
The answer came slowly.
“I’m the man your mother warned you about.”
The call ended.
Meredith stared at the phone.
Then she looked at Julian.
“Who was it?”
Julian’s face had gone completely pale.
He whispered one sentence.
“The man who ordered the attack on your mother.”
Alexander stepped backward.

Robert began shaking.
And Meredith realized something terrifying.
The man who had been hunting her family for twenty-nine years had not just found her.
He had been watching her.
At her sister’s wedding.
From the beginning.
And he had been close enough to see her fall into the fountain.
Close enough to watch Julian arrive.

Close enough to know exactly where she would go next.
Then a message appeared on Meredith’s phone.
One photograph.
She opened it.
Her breath stopped.
It was a picture of her and Julian standing outside the secure facility.
The photograph had been taken less than one minute earlier.
Underneath it were six words.
I KNOW WHERE YOUR MOTHER IS.
Continue read next >>>PART5:My family laughed when I walked into my sister’s …