Chapter 21 - THE WOMAN WHO RAISED EVELYN
Daniel arrived at the cemetery just before midnight.
He found no one near Rebecca’s grave, only a small bouquet and a folded note.
She is alive. Trust no one who carries your family name.
A sound came from behind the trees.
A young woman stepped forward, her face partly hidden by a hood.
“Daniel?”
He nodded, afraid to speak.
The woman lowered her hood.
She looked remarkably like Claire.
“My name is Evelyn.”
Daniel’s knees nearly gave way.
He had imagined this moment countless times, but nothing had prepared him for seeing his missing daughter standing before him.
“I’m your father,” he whispered.
Evelyn’s eyes filled with tears, but she did not approach.
“You’re a stranger who let my mother die.”
“I didn’t know you existed.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
Daniel reached toward her. Evelyn stepped back.
“Who raised you?” he asked.
“Rebecca. She told me my birth parents had abandoned me. After she died, I found letters from Claire hidden in her apartment.”
“Why didn’t you contact me sooner?”
“Because someone followed me every time I got close.”
She showed him a photograph of a man watching her outside her workplace.
Daniel recognized him.
One of Victor’s former bodyguards.
“Victor knew where you were,” Daniel said.
“He knew where I lived, where I worked, everything. But he never told me why.”
Evelyn handed him a letter from Claire.
In it, Claire wrote that Evelyn’s birth had been hidden to protect her from a powerful family member. She also mentioned a bank account containing evidence of illegal payments.
Daniel looked up.
“Do you know who killed her?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“I saw someone leave the hospital that night. I was a child, but I remember the voice.”
“Whose voice?”
“My grandmother’s.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Margaret.”
Evelyn nodded.
“But I also heard another voice. A man’s. He told her the problem would be taken care of.”
Before Daniel could ask more, headlights swept across the cemetery.
A car stopped near the entrance.
Men climbed out.
Evelyn grabbed Daniel’s hand. “They found me.”
They ran between the graves, but one man caught Daniel by the jacket and punched him hard enough to send him against a stone monument.
Evelyn screamed and struck the attacker with a fallen branch. Daniel struggled to his feet and pulled her toward a side gate.
They escaped into the street and reached a nearby gas station, where Daniel called Harris.
Evelyn was trembling.
“There’s something else,” she said.
“What?”
She took a second photograph from her pocket.
It showed Claire standing with a man outside the hospital.
The man’s face was clear.
May you like
Daniel recognized him immediately.
Detective Harris.
