PART 8 — THE PERSON BEHIND MEGAN
For almost a year, I had believed Megan was the most dangerous person who had ever entered my family.
Then Detective Cole placed one handwritten page on my kitchen table and changed everything.
HELEN DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HER FATHER DID.
DO NOT LET HER FIND THOMAS BEFORE WE CONTROL THE CERTIFICATE.
I read the sentence again.
Then I looked at the word above it.
WE.
Not I.
We.
Someone else had been involved.
Someone who knew my father.
Someone who knew Thomas.
Someone who knew about an investment even I had never known existed.
And apparently, someone who had been waiting years for me to discover it.
George stood behind my chair.
“What exactly did Megan know?”
Detective Cole closed the evidence folder.
“More than we realized.”
“How much more?”
“We’re still determining that.”
I hated that answer.
For months, I had lived on phrases like that.
We’re investigating.
We’re checking.
We don’t know yet.
There may be more.
I wanted one morning when there was not more.
Margaret sat across from me.
She looked almost as shaken as I felt.
Until ten days earlier, she had believed my father was hers.
Now DNA suggested that her biological father was probably Thomas Bennett—the older brother my father had never told me existed.
And Thomas’s granddaughter was Megan.
Rebecca Ann Mercer.
My son’s wife.
The woman who had tried to destroy us.
Margaret whispered, “If Thomas was my father, what does that make Megan to me?”
Detective Cole answered carefully.
“If the records are correct, Thomas had at least two children.”
“Daniel and me?”
“Possibly.”
“Then Daniel would have been my half-brother.”
“Yes.”
“And Megan…”
“Would be your half-niece.”
Margaret covered her mouth.
I looked toward the staircase.
Molly and Eli were upstairs.
They were Megan’s children.
Which meant the strange family tree had wrapped itself around all of us.
George rubbed his forehead.
“This is insane.”
“No,” Detective Cole said.
“It’s complicated.”
“That isn’t better.”
“No.”
Cole opened the folder again.
“We searched every digital device recovered from Megan and Linda.”
“Why didn’t you find this before?”
“Because this file wasn’t stored under Megan’s normal account. It was recovered from an encrypted partition after we obtained a new password from one of the financial accounts Brian helped identify.”
Brian.
Even from prison, my son was still pulling threads from the knot he had helped tie.
“What else was there?”
Cole hesitated.
I noticed.
“What?”
“Approximately four hundred files.”
Margaret stared at him.
“Four hundred?”
“Photographs. Property records. Estate documents. Genealogical research. Copies of letters. Corporate filings.”
My heart began pounding.
“About my father?”
“Some.”
“About me?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
Cole looked at me.
“The earliest file mentioning you was created fourteen years ago.”
I felt George’s hand tighten on my shoulder.
Fourteen years.
Megan had not even known Brian then.
At least, Brian believed she had not.
“How old was she?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“And she was already researching me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We think the certificate is only part of the answer.”
There was that phrase again.
Part of the answer.
I stood and walked toward the window.
Outside, Eli’s bicycle lay on its side beside the driveway.
A red plastic helmet hung from the handlebar.
Something ordinary.
Something real.
I focused on it.
“Tell me the rest.”
Cole removed three pages.
The first was a corporate record.
The second was a newspaper clipping.
The third was a photograph.
He placed the photograph in front of me.
Three men stood outside a factory.
One was my father.
Samuel.
One was the man we now believed was Thomas.
And the third man was unfamiliar.
All three looked young.
Probably in their twenties.
Behind them was a sign.
MIDWEST PRECISION COMPONENTS
DAYTON, OHIO
1962
“My father worked there.”
Cole nodded.
“He did.”
“He never owned it.”
“Apparently, he did.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Not entirely. The company was started by four investors. Your father was one of them.”
“Four?”
“Yes.”
“Who were the others?”
Cole pointed.
“Thomas Bennett.”
Then the third man.
“Walter Mercer.”
Mercer again.
“And the fourth?”
Cole looked at me.
“That’s where this becomes difficult.”
“Why?”
“Because the fourth investor’s name does not appear on the original public filing.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if the investment was held through a private agreement.”
George sat beside me.
“Who was it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I looked at the photograph.
Samuel.
Thomas.
Walter.
And somewhere outside the frame, a fourth person.
“What happened to the company?”
“It developed a manufacturing process for specialized aerospace components. At the time, it wasn’t particularly valuable. Then a larger company purchased its patents.”
“And Dad kept ownership?”
“Partially.”
“That’s the certificate?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t anyone know?”
“Because the corporate history becomes messy after 1966.”
“What happened in 1966?”
Cole slid the newspaper clipping toward me.
The headline read:
LOCAL BUSINESS PARTNER MISSING AFTER FACTORY FIRE
I stopped.
“Who disappeared?”
Cole did not answer immediately.
He did not need to.
I looked at the photograph again.
Thomas.
“No.”
“Thomas Bennett disappeared three days after the fire.”
“But you said his name was changed when he was eleven.”
“It was.”
“So why was he using Bennett again?”
“We don’t know.”
Margaret leaned forward.
“Did he die in the fire?”
“No body was recovered.”
“Then where did he go?”
“That is exactly what Megan appears to have spent years trying to discover.”
I stared at him.
“Megan didn’t know?”
“Apparently not.”
That changed something.
If Megan had been searching for Thomas, then whoever had guided her did not have every answer either.
George picked up the newspaper clipping.
“What caused the fire?”
“Officially?”
“Yes.”
“Electrical failure.”
“And unofficially?”
Cole looked at him.
“There were allegations that financial records were destroyed.”
“Whose records?”
“The company’s.”
Margaret whispered, “Someone burned the evidence.”
“Possibly.”
I thought about my father.
He had never told me any of this.
Not the company.
Not Thomas.
Not the fire.
Nothing.
“Was my father investigated?”
“Yes.”
The word hurt.
“For what?”
“Insurance fraud initially. No charges were filed.”
“And Thomas?”
“He disappeared before investigators could interview him.”
“Walter Mercer?”
“Interviewed twice. Never charged.”
I looked at the photograph.
“What happened to Walter?”
“He died twenty-three years ago.”
“So everyone who knows what happened is dead.”
Cole did not answer.
I noticed.
“Everyone?”
He looked at me.
“We found one person who might still be alive.”
The room became silent.
“Who?”
“The fourth investor.”
I stared at him.
“You just said you didn’t know who that was.”
“We don’t know the legal name.”
“Then how do you know the person is alive?”
“Because Megan received a message from them eleven months ago.”
Cole removed another page.
It was an email.
No sender name.
No signature.
Only three sentences.
Rebecca,
Stop searching for Thomas.
The Bennett certificate does not belong to Helen.
If she ever discovers it, contact me.
I felt cold.
“When was this sent?”
“Three weeks before Megan and Brian filed the guardianship petition against you.”
George swore.
“So that’s what triggered everything.”
“Possibly.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at me.
“The guardianship petition was about controlling me.”
“Yes.”
“If they controlled me, they controlled my assets.”
Cole nodded.
“And if the certificate became part of my father’s reopened estate…”
“They could control your claim.”
Exactly.
Suddenly the pieces rearranged themselves.
The house.
The investment accounts.
The guardianship.
They mattered.
But perhaps they had also been camouflage.
Megan needed Brian to control me before the hidden certificate surfaced.
“What is it worth?”
I asked.
Cole glanced toward Evelyn.
She had joined us shortly after he arrived.
She opened a financial report.
“The current estimate is between eleven and fourteen million dollars.”
Nobody spoke.
I laughed.
I could not help it.
Not because it was funny.
Because apparently my family had reached the point where eleven million dollars could enter a conversation and still not be the most shocking part.
George looked at me.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Fair enough.”
Margaret asked, “If Samuel owned it, wouldn’t Helen inherit it?”
“Normally,” Evelyn said.
“But the original ownership agreement may contain restrictions.”
“What restrictions?”
“We don’t have the full agreement.”
“Because it burned?”
“Possibly.”
Then Detective Cole’s phone rang.
He stepped into the hallway.
A minute later, he returned.
His expression had changed.
“We found the source of the voicemail sent to Margaret.”
My stomach tightened.
“The man who offered her money?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“The voice was altered, but the call originated through an internet service. Investigators traced the account used to pay for it.”
“And?”
Cole looked toward me.
“It was paid from a trust.”
“What trust?”
“The Samuel Bennett Family Preservation Trust.”
I stared at him.
“My father didn’t have a trust.”
“Apparently, he did.”
“No. Evelyn handled the estate records. There was no trust.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Not one disclosed during probate.”
“Then who created it?”
Cole placed another document on the table.
“Samuel Bennett.”
The signature at the bottom looked like my father’s.
But after everything we had survived, I no longer trusted signatures.
“When?”
“1967.”
One year after the factory fire.
“Who controlled it?”
“The original trustee was an attorney named Charles Weller.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He died in 1989.”
“Then who controls it now?”
“That information is sealed within the trust records.”
I stared at Cole.
“How can someone control a trust using my father’s name without me knowing?”
“That is one of the questions we’re trying to answer.”
The following week became a storm of attorneys, investigators, accountants, and documents.
I learned more about my father in seven days than I had learned during the final twenty years of his life.
Samuel Bennett had not merely worked in manufacturing.
He had helped develop a precision component used in early aviation systems.
He had invested his earnings.
Quietly.
He had formed partnerships.
Quietly.
He had created a trust.
Quietly.
My father, apparently, had been very good at silence.
That realization hurt.
Because silence had nearly destroyed my marriage.
Silence had helped Brian become the man he became.
And now I was discovering that the habit had existed long before any of us.
Then Brian called.
Prison calls were scheduled.
Recorded.
Limited.
I almost did not answer.
But I did.
“Mom?”
“Yes.”
“I heard about Thomas.”
“How?”
“My attorney.”
He paused.
“Is it true?”
“We don’t know all of it yet.”
“Megan knew, didn’t she?”
I remained silent.
“Mom.”
“She researched our family before meeting you.”
Nothing came from the other end.
Then Brian whispered, “How long before?”
“Years.”
I heard him breathe.
“I thought she loved me.”
There are moments when a mother’s instinct becomes almost unbearable.
I wanted to tell him she had.
Maybe she had.
I wanted to soften it.
Explain it.
Give him something less painful to hold.
Then I remembered my father’s letter.
Do not confuse being needed with being loved.
I answered carefully.
“I don’t know what Megan felt.”
Brian began crying.
“I destroyed everything for someone who picked me from a file.”
“You made your choices.”
“I know.”
“But being targeted does matter.”
He became quiet.
“It explains how she found you.”
“Yes.”
“It does not erase what you did afterward.”
“I know.”
This time, when he said it, I believed he understood the difference.
Then his voice changed.
“Mom, there’s something I need to tell Detective Cole.”
My entire body tensed.
“What?”
“Megan used to receive letters.”
“What kind of letters?”
“Actual letters. Paper.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know.”
“How often?”
“Maybe every few months.”
“Where are they?”
“She burned them.”
My heart began pounding.
“All of them?”
“I thought so.”
“Thought?”
“One time she received one while we were at the old house.”
“What old house?”
“Grandpa Samuel’s.”
I stood.
“What were you doing at my father’s house?”
Silence.
“Brian.”
“Megan wanted to see it.”
“When?”
“About four years ago.”
“You never told me.”
“No.”
“What did she do there?”
“She walked through every room.”
“Looking for what?”
“She said she liked old houses.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
“Then what?”
“She went into the basement.”
My father’s basement.
I remembered shelves of paint cans.
Tools.
Christmas decorations.
An old workbench.
“She found something behind the workbench.”
“What?”
“A metal tube.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What was inside?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t show me.”
“Brian.”
“I swear.”
His voice became desperate.
“She opened it. Read something. Then started crying.”
“Crying?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Brian paused.
“One sentence.”
“What sentence?”
“She said, ‘He knew where Thomas went.’”
I sat down.
“Who knew?”
“I asked her.”
“And?”
“She said your father.”
Samuel knew where Thomas went.
My father had known.
Perhaps all along.
“Did she keep whatever was inside?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it now?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Brian remembered something.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“The envelope.”
“What envelope?”
“The letter she received that day.”
“You said she burned them.”
“She burned that one too.”
“Then how does that help?”
“Because I saw the return address.”
My pulse quickened.
“Where?”
“Indiana.”
“What city?”
“I couldn’t remember until my attorney told me about Thomas.”
“Brian.”
“What city?”
“Richmond.”
I wrote it down.
“Anything else?”
“There were initials.”
“What initials?”
“E.W.”
Detective Cole searched immediately.
E.W.
Richmond, Indiana.
Connected to Samuel Bennett.
Connected to Thomas.
Connected to Midwest Precision Components.
For two days, nothing.
Then he found a name buried in a forty-eight-year-old property transfer.
Edward Weller.
The son of Charles Weller.
The original trustee of my father’s secret trust.
Edward was eighty-two years old.
And alive.
Detective Cole located him in an assisted-living community outside Richmond.
We expected him to refuse to speak.
Instead, when Cole called, Edward said something extraordinary.
“Is Helen finally asking?”
Finally.
That word changed everything.
Two days later, George and I drove to Indiana with Detective Cole.
Margaret came separately.
I almost told her not to.
Then I realized if Thomas truly was her father, she deserved answers too.
Edward Weller lived in a small private apartment overlooking a courtyard.
He was thin.
White-haired.
Sharp-eyed.
A cane rested beside his chair.
When I entered, he studied my face for several seconds.
Then he smiled sadly.
“You look like your mother.”
I stopped.
“You knew her?”
“Very well.”
“Did you know my father?”
“For most of my life.”
“Thomas?”
His smile disappeared.
“Yes.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“My name is Margaret Ellis.”
Edward stared at her.
His face lost all color.
“Oh.”
That single word contained recognition.
Margaret noticed.
“You know who I am.”
Edward closed his eyes.
“I wondered whether this day would come.”
“Was Thomas Bennett my father?”
Edward looked toward Detective Cole.
Then me.
Finally Margaret.
“Yes.”
Margaret began crying.
I reached for her hand without thinking.
She held mine.
Edward continued.
“Thomas loved Rose.”
“Then why did Rose believe Samuel was my father?”
Margaret asked.
Edward frowned.
“She didn’t.”
Margaret froze.
“My mother told me Samuel was my father.”
“No.”
Edward shook his head.
“Rose knew Thomas was your father.”
“Then why would she lie?”
“Because Thomas asked her to.”
“Why?”
Edward looked at me.
“Because someone wanted Thomas dead.”
The room became silent.
“Who?”
I asked.
Edward looked toward the courtyard.
“For sixty years, your family has been asking the wrong question.”
“What question should we be asking?”
“Not why Thomas disappeared.”
He turned back toward me.
“Why Samuel helped him disappear.”
My knees weakened.
Edward pointed toward the sofa.
“Sit down, Helen.”
I did.
Then the old man told us what happened in 1966.
The factory fire had not been an accident.
Thomas discovered that one of the partners had been secretly transferring patent rights into another company.
He confronted the person.
There was a fight.
Three nights later, the factory burned.
Thomas believed the fire was meant to destroy records proving the theft.
Then someone tried to kill him.
“Who?”
Edward shook his head.
“Thomas never knew for certain.”
“What did my father do?”
“He hid him.”
“Where?”
“Initially, Kentucky.”
Margaret leaned forward.
“And my mother?”
“Rose went with him.”
That explained Lake Cumberland.
The photograph.
Samuel.
Rose.
Baby Margaret.
My father had not been Rose’s lover.
He had been helping his brother.
The realization hit me so hard I started crying.
My father had not betrayed my mother.
At least not in the way I had feared.
But another question immediately replaced the relief.
“Why did my mother write that it was the strangest vacation of their marriage?”
Edward smiled faintly.
“Because your mother was part of it.”
I stared at him.
“She knew?”
“Of course she knew.”
Everything shifted again.
My parents.
The lake.
The crying photographs.
The missing journal pages.
“They helped Thomas disappear together?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t they tell me?”
“You were sixteen.”
“I wasn’t sixteen forever.”
Edward lowered his eyes.
“No.”
That answer hurt.
“What happened afterward?”
“Thomas eventually created another identity.”
“Mercer?”
“Temporarily.”
“Why that name?”
“Walter Mercer helped arrange documents.”
“And Daniel?”
Edward hesitated.
“Thomas had Daniel before he met Rose.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
So Daniel had been her half-brother.
And Megan truly was Thomas’s granddaughter.
“Did Megan know any of this?”
I asked.
Edward’s expression hardened.
“She knew enough.”
“You sent her letters.”
“Yes.”
George stepped forward.
“Why?”
“Because she contacted me.”
“When?”
“Fifteen years ago.”
Before Brian.
Before everything.
“She had been researching her grandfather.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Very little.”
“Apparently enough to lead her directly to my son.”
Edward looked ashamed.
“I never gave her Brian’s name.”
“Someone did.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Edward became quiet.
Detective Cole moved closer.
“Mr. Weller, this is important.”
“I know.”
“Who was the fourth investor?”
Edward stared at him.
Then toward me.
“That is what Rebecca wanted to know.”
“Who?”
He reached for his cane.
His hand trembled.
“The person who started all of it.”
“Give me the name.”
Edward stood slowly.
Then walked toward a cabinet.
He removed a small wooden box.
Inside was an envelope.
My name was written on it.
Again.
HELEN CARTER.
My father’s handwriting.
I stared at Edward.
“How many letters did my father leave me?”
“Only two.”
“Then why did you have this one?”
“Because Samuel instructed me not to give it to you unless someone came looking for the certificate.”
My skin prickled.
“He knew?”
“He suspected.”
“Knew what?”
“That eventually someone would come back for it.”
Edward handed me the envelope.
It had remained sealed for almost sixty years.
I opened it.
Inside was one page.
Helen,
If Edward gives you this letter, then the past has finally found you.
Do not trust the company records.
Do not trust the original ownership agreement.
Thomas did not steal from us.
Walter did not start the fire.
And if someone tells you the fourth partner died in 1966, they are lying.
My hands shook.
Below that was another sentence.
The fourth partner knows exactly what happened to Thomas.
I looked at Edward.
“Who was it?”
Edward’s face became pale.
“Keep reading.”
There was one final line.
A name.
I read it.
Then read it again.
My mother.
Eleanor Bennett.
I stared at Edward.
“No.”
Margaret leaned toward the page.
George whispered, “Helen?”
I could barely hear him.
“My mother was the fourth investor.”
Edward nodded.
“She financed the company.”
“My mother was a homemaker.”
“That was what people believed.”
“She died twenty years ago.”
Edward looked directly into my eyes.
“No, Helen.”
My entire body went cold.
I heard George inhale sharply.
“What did you say?”
Edward gripped his cane.
“Eleanor Bennett did not die twenty years ago.”
I stood.
“I buried my mother.”
“You buried someone.”
The room seemed to disappear.
“That’s impossible.”
“I saw her body.”
“Did you?”
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
Closed casket.
My mother had supposedly died after a terrible highway accident while visiting a friend in Pennsylvania.
The funeral director had advised us not to view her because of her injuries.
My father had identified her.
I had never seen her face.
Edward continued.
“Samuel helped Eleanor disappear too.”
“Why?”
“Because by then she knew who had ordered the factory fire.”
I could barely breathe.
“Where is she?”
Edward looked toward Detective Cole.
Then back at me.
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe my mother has been alive for twenty years and no one told me?”
“No.”
His eyes filled with sadness.
“I expect you to be furious.”
I was.
But beneath the fury was something else.
Hope.
Terrible, dangerous hope.
“How old would she be?”
“Ninety-one.”
“Is she alive?”
“The last time I heard from her was eighteen months ago.”
My knees nearly gave out.
George caught me.
Eighteen months.
Not twenty years.
Not decades.
Eighteen months.
“What did she say?”
Edward returned to the wooden box.
He removed a postcard.
No return address.
No signature.
Only six handwritten words.
THE CHILDREN MUST NEVER PAY FOR US.
I recognized the handwriting.
My mother’s.
I had seen it on birthday cards.
Recipes.
School notes.
Christmas labels.
I pressed the postcard against my chest.
Detective Cole asked, “Where was it mailed?”
Edward turned it over.
The postmark was blurred.
But one word remained visible.
FLORIDA.
George and I looked at each other.
Florida.
Key West.
The cottage.
The trip that had started everything.
I whispered, “No.”
Edward frowned.
“What?”
I grabbed my phone.
My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped it.
I opened the photographs from our Key West trip.
The beach.
The cottage.
The restaurant.
George in his ridiculous floral shirt.
Me in the cream dress.
Then I found the photograph.
A picture George had taken of me sitting outside a small café.
Behind me were tourists.
Waiters.
Bicycles.
And one elderly woman sitting alone at a table across the street.
White hair.
Large sunglasses.
A straw hat.
She was looking directly at me.
I enlarged the photograph.
My heart stopped.
I knew that mouth.
I knew the curve of that chin.
I had seen both every morning of my childhood.
George whispered, “Helen…”
I could not answer.
Because eighteen months after my supposedly dead mother mailed Edward Weller a postcard from Florida, I had traveled to Key West.
And without knowing it, I may have sat less than thirty feet away from her.
Detective Cole took my phone.
He studied the image.
Then he asked the question I was too frightened to ask myself.
“If that is Eleanor Bennett, how did she know you would be in Key West?”
Nobody answered.
Then Edward whispered from behind us.
“Because Helen wasn’t the only person being watched.”
I turned.
“What does that mean?”
Edward’s face tightened.
“Rebecca was searching for Eleanor.”
“Megan?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Eleanor is the only surviving person who knows who actually owns the certificate.”
I looked at my mother’s face on the screen.
Alive.
Maybe.
Watching me.
And suddenly I understood.
The certificate was not the secret.
The money was not the secret.
Even Thomas was not the secret.
My mother was.
And if Megan had spent fifteen years searching for her, then putting Megan in prison had not ended the danger.
It may have forced whoever was still helping her to finish the search themselves.
That evening, Detective Cole received an urgent call from Ohio.
Investigators had reexamined Megan’s encrypted files.
They had found a folder overlooked during the first recovery.
Its name was simple.
ELEANOR.
Inside were hundreds of photographs of elderly women across Florida.
Bus stations.
Restaurants.
Hospitals.
Churches.
Retirement communities.
And at the very bottom was a photograph taken only six weeks earlier.
The woman from the café.
My mother.
This time there were no sunglasses.
No hat.
Her face was clearly visible.
She stood outside a small white house.
Detective Cole enlarged the address number beside the door.
Then he checked the property records.
The house belonged to a ninety-one-year-old woman named Nora Wells.
But the photograph was not what frightened him.
Something had been written beneath it.
FOUND HER.
WAITING FOR INSTRUCTIONS.
And below that:
HELEN MUST NOT REACH HER FIRST.
I looked at Detective Cole.
“Where is the house?”
He did not answer immediately.
“Cole.”
“Outside Key West.”
“When was the photograph taken?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“Then we go.”
“Helen—”
“If that woman is my mother, I am going.”
George stepped beside me.
“So am I.”
Margaret stood too.
Detective Cole looked at all three of us.
Then his phone rang again.
He answered.
His expression changed almost immediately.
“What?”
I demanded.
He lowered the phone.
“Local police just checked the address.”
My heart began pounding.
“And?”
“The house is empty.”
“Where is she?”
“They don’t know.”
“Was there a struggle?”
“No.”
“Then maybe she left.”
Cole remained silent.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“They found something on the kitchen table.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
“Of whom?”
“You.”
My breath stopped.
“The photograph from Key West?”
“No.”
Cole looked directly at me.
“It was taken yesterday.”
My skin went cold.
Yesterday I had taken Molly and Eli to the park.
We bought ice cream.
We fed ducks.
We walked home.
Someone had been watching us.
“What was written on it?”
Cole hesitated.
Then answered.
Three words.
BRING HELEN HOME.
For the first time since Megan had gone to prison, I understood something terrifying.
Whoever was still controlling this game did not simply know my family’s history.
They knew where I was.
They knew where my grandchildren were.
And somewhere between Ohio and Florida, my ninety-one-year-old mother—the woman I had mourned for twenty years—might still be alive.
But now someone else had found her first…..
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 9 — BRING HELEN HOME
