Chương 4
Behind us was another person.
A man standing near the trees.
His face was partially hidden.
"Who is that?"
My mother looked at the picture.
"Michael thought he knew."
I picked it up.
"Who?"
She whispered.
"Your father."
The room went silent.
I felt like the air had been pulled out of my lungs.
"My father?"
Daniel looked at me carefully.
"Your father was involved."
I shook my head.
"No."
The word came out immediately.
"No, that's impossible."
My father had died when I was young.
He had been gone for decades.
He was a quiet man.
A man who worked hard.
A man who loved my mother.
At least, that was the story I had been given.
My mother looked down.
"I never told you everything about him."
A painful laugh escaped me.
"Apparently, nobody tells me anything."
She accepted the words without defending herself.
Because she knew they were true.
"What did Michael discover?"
My mother touched the photograph.
"He discovered that your father had been keeping records."
"Records of what?"
She looked at Daniel.
He answered.
"Payments."
My stomach tightened.
"Payments to who?"
"We don't know."
"But you think it had something to do with Michael?"
Daniel nodded.
"Michael believed someone was trying to hide the truth about your family."
I looked at the baby.
"And now this baby is part of that truth."
Nobody spoke.
The front door suddenly shook slightly from the wind outside.
Everyone looked toward it.
For a brief moment, fear crossed my mother's face.
Not confusion.
Fear.
"Mom?"
She looked at me.
"Did someone know the baby was here?"
She didn't answer.
That was enough.
My heart started racing.
"Who knows?"
She looked away.
"Mom."
"I don't know."
Daniel immediately moved toward the window.
He looked outside.
The quiet suburban street looked normal.
Neighbors' cars.
Trees moving gently in the afternoon wind.
Nothing seemed wrong.
But the feeling in the room had changed.
We were no longer just a family dealing with a secret.
We were people who might be hiding from someone.
Lily stepped closer to me.
"Mommy."
I looked down.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Is someone going to take the baby away?"
The question broke my heart.
I knelt down carefully.
"No."
I held her hand.
"Nobody is taking him anywhere."
She looked at me.
"Promise?"
I looked at the baby.
Then at Daniel.
Then at my mother.
"I promise."
But deep inside, I knew promises were dangerous.
Because everyone who had promised to protect me had also kept something from me.
My mother walked toward the kitchen slowly.
"There is something else you need to see."
I watched her.
"What else?"
She opened another cabinet and reached behind a stack of old dishes.
She pulled out a small envelope.
It looked worn.
Like it had been touched many times.
She handed it to me.
"Michael left this for you."
My fingers froze around it.
"Why didn't you give it to me?"
Her eyes filled with regret.
"Because I was told he was dead."
I looked at Daniel.
"Who told you?"
Neither of them answered.
My pulse quickened.
"Who?"
Daniel looked at me.
"The police report said there was an accident."
"An accident?"
He nodded.
"But Michael never had an accident."
My eyes narrowed.
"How do you know?"
Daniel looked away.
And then he said something that made my entire body go cold.
"Because I was the last person who saw him alive."
The room disappeared for a second.
The baby.
The sofa.
The photographs.
Everything blurred.
"You?"
Daniel's voice broke.
"Yes."
My mother looked at him.
"You never told her."
He shook his head.
"I was trying to protect her."
I stepped backward.
"Protect me from what?"
Daniel's eyes filled with pain.
"From the truth about what happened that night."
I held the envelope tighter.
"Open it."
He looked at me.
"What?"
I stared at him.
"Open the letter."
My voice was calm.
Almost too calm.
"Because after everything I've heard today, I want to know what Michael was trying to tell me before everyone decided I wasn't allowed to hear it."
My mother started crying.
Daniel looked at the envelope.
And for the first time, I saw genuine fear on his face.
Not guilt.
Not regret.
Fear.
Because whatever Michael had written inside that envelope was something Daniel had spent years trying to bury.
Slowly, I opened it.
The paper inside was old.
The handwriting was familiar.
My hands began shaking when I read the first line.
"To the woman I love, if you are reading this, then they failed to keep the truth from you forever."
I could barely breathe as I stared at Michael's handwriting.
The letters looked exactly the way I remembered.
The same careful lines.
The same slight tilt to the right.
The same way he used to write my name on birthday cards when we were young.
But now those familiar marks carried a warning.
"If you are reading this, then they failed to keep the truth from you forever."
My fingers trembled.
I looked up at my mother.
She was crying silently.
I looked at Daniel.
He couldn't meet my eyes.
And suddenly I understood.
This wasn't just a secret they had hidden.
This was something they had feared.
I continued reading.
"I don't know who you can trust anymore."
My heart tightened.
"That includes people you love."
The words blurred for a moment.
I wiped my eyes quickly and forced myself to continue.
"I spent months trying to understand why someone wanted my investigation to disappear."
Investigation.
That word made me stop.
Michael wasn't just searching for answers.
He had been investigating something.
Something dangerous.
"I found documents that prove your family has been lied to for years."
I looked at my mother.
She lowered her head.
"What documents?"
My voice was quiet.
She didn't answer.
I looked back at the letter.
"Your father was not the man you believed he was."
My stomach turned.
May you like
I kept reading.
"He made mistakes, but he also tried to fix them before it was too late."
