Chapter 7 - Caroline Reveals Margaret’s Older Secret
Daniel’s sister Caroline flew in the next day.
She brought a box.
Inside were childhood photographs, Robert’s notes, and an old cassette tape.
Caroline had taken it from the hidden basement room when she was sixteen.
On the recording, Margaret argued with Robert.
“You’re destroying Samuel’s work because Daniel cried.”
Robert shouted back:
“Daniel stopped breathing.”
Margaret replied:
“He recovered.”
The room listening to the recording went silent.
Emily turned it off.
Caroline had kept the tape because nobody believed her when she said their parents’ arguments were about experiments.
She left home at eighteen.
Her relationship with Margaret never recovered.
Daniel asked why Caroline never told him.
“I tried when you were twelve. Mom said I was jealous because you were Dad’s favorite. You believed her.”
Daniel remembered.
He had called Caroline cruel.
The memory hurt.
Caroline did not use it to punish him.
“We were kids.”
Then she revealed something else.
Samuel Voss had not invented the original Red Series alone.
Robert helped formulate it.
Daniel stared.
His father’s letter portrayed him as the man who stopped the program.
That was true.
It was not the whole truth.
Robert had helped start it.
He withdrew only after Daniel’s severe reaction.
The family’s clean hero-villain story cracked.
Robert had eventually done the right thing.
But only after participating in something dangerous.
Caroline looked at Daniel.
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“Dad protected you later. He also helped create what hurt you first.”
Both facts mattered.
