Chapter 3 - Margaret Knew Sarah Before Daniel
The mansion employee who spoke in the rain was Helen Brooks. She had
worked for the Whitmores for seventeen years.
Helen admitted Margaret brought Sarah’s blue box into the mansion the
same week Daniel first introduced Sarah to the family.
“Where did she get it?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know. She said it belonged to a blackmailer.”
Sarah closed her eyes. Margaret had turned Thomas into a criminal even
after making him disappear.
Helen remembered Margaret receiving a letter three months earlier from
Vermont. Investigators found a hotel receipt from the same town.
The hotel still had security footage.
Margaret was visible in the lobby.
So was an older man walking with a cane.
Sarah stopped breathing.
“That’s my father.”
Thomas Bennett was alive.
Maya verified Daniel’s birth certificate through archived county
records. An amended certificate had named Margaret as his mother six
months after his birth, but no normal adoption record existed.
Evelyn Hart had worked in Charles’s investment office. Her employment
ended one month after Daniel was born.
On the flash drive, Thomas had written: Evelyn saw the first transfer.
Another letter, signed E, said Charles and Margaret threatened Evelyn
after she discovered financial misconduct. Evelyn claimed Margaret
offered her money to disappear and later helped use legal pressure to
keep her away from Daniel.
The final line broke him.
If I cannot come back for Daniel, tell him I did not leave because I
stopped loving him.
Lily entered quietly and climbed into his lap.
“Daddy, are you crying?”
“A little.”
“Because Grandma lied?”
“Because she kept something important from me.”
Maya then enlarged the Vermont footage.
Thomas and Margaret were not arguing.
Thomas handed Margaret a folder.
On its cover were two words:
EVELYN HART.
May you like
Whatever had brought Sarah’s father out of hiding was connected to
Daniel’s mother.
