Chapter 2 - Elliot Explains The Nightmarish Discovery Inside The Master Bedroom
The heavy oak door of the Hayes mansion master suite remained slightly ajar, casting a thin strip of dim light across the polished hallway floor.
Elliot Hayes stood frozen near the threshold, his breathing ragged and his hands trembling violently against his sides.
“She wasn't who she claimed to be, Natalie... none of it was real,” Elliot rasped out, his voice stripped of all its former arrogant authority.
Natalie stood by the top of the grand staircase with Lucy clutched tightly in her arms, her eyes narrowing with cold suspicion.
“You spent months telling me I was just a bitter ex-wife, Elliot, while you handed our lives over to a total stranger,” Natalie fired back.
“I walked into the walk-in closet ten minutes before I called you and found a hidden wall safe ripped wide open,” Elliot confessed, staring blankly at the carpet.
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“And what was inside that safe?” Natalie demanded, shifting Lucy’s weight as the little girl buried her face deeper into her mother’s shoulder.
“Deeds, birth certificates, and documents bearing a last name our family hasn't spoken aloud in thirty years,” Elliot whispered.
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