Chapter 3 - what amelia hid behind the library)
The second key opened the cabinet.
Inside were no jewels.
No money.
No secret passports.
There were six folders.
Three flash drives.
A small audio recorder.
And a sealed envelope addressed in Amelia Vale’s handwriting.
For Ethan.
His hands shook so badly he almost tore it.
Nia stood beside him.
“You should read it.”
Ethan looked at her.
“You already know what it says?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know my mother?”
Nia lowered her eyes.
“She told me not to explain until you saw what was inside.”
“When?”
Nia did not answer.
Ethan grabbed her wrist.
“When did my mother tell you?”
Nia looked straight at him.
“Four months ago.”
Ethan released her.
The room seemed to tilt.
“My mother died three years ago.”
Nia swallowed.
“I know what everybody thinks.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said you saw her.”
“I did.”
“Where?”
“At St. Martha’s.”
Ethan had never heard of it.
Nia explained that St. Martha’s was a church shelter on the south side of the city.
She had been staying there temporarily with her grandmother.
One rainy evening, a woman arrived.
She was thin.
Sick.
Terrified.
She called herself Anna.
Nia’s grandmother helped care for her.
For several weeks, the woman barely left the shelter basement.
Then she saw an old newspaper on a table.
Ethan’s face was on the front page beside Charles.
The woman fainted.
That night, she told Nia’s grandmother the truth.
Her name was Amelia Vale.
Ethan felt physically ill.
“Why didn’t she come get me?”
“She wanted to.”
“Then why didn’t she?”
“She said your father would know.”
“My father thinks she’s dead.”
“No.”
Nia’s voice was quiet.
“He knows she isn’t.”
Ethan stared at the envelope.
He opened it.
My Ethan,
If you are reading this, then one of two things has happened.
Either I found the courage and safety to come back to you myself, or I failed.
If I failed, you must understand one thing before anything else.
I did not leave you.
I would never leave you.
The accident was not an accident.
Ethan stopped reading.
The words blurred.
He wiped his eyes.
Nia said nothing.
He continued.
Your father discovered that I intended to leave him.
I had also discovered financial records linking the Vale Foundation to accounts he was using to hide money from the family trust.
I planned to take you away that night.
We never made it.
The car that struck us belonged to a company connected to your father.
I survived.
Your father found out before the police did.
He came to the hospital while I was unconscious.
When I woke, Dr. Crane told me you were dead.
Ethan gasped.
The letter trembled.
For weeks I believed I had lost you.
Then I escaped the private clinic where they were keeping me.
Months later I saw your photograph online.
You were alive.
You were in a wheelchair.
And your father had told the world I was dead.
Ethan covered his mouth.
Nia placed a hand on his shoulder.
He kept reading.
I tried to reach you twice.
Both times, people followed me.
One man threatened the family helping me.
I realized Charles would hurt anyone who brought me near you.
So I began collecting proof.
The cabinet contains what I could gather.
But there is something even more important.
Ethan, you may not be permanently paralyzed.
Dr. Samuel Reeves examined your original emergency scans before Charles moved you to Crane’s private clinic.
Reeves believed your spinal injury was incomplete and that, with rehabilitation, you had a significant chance of recovering movement.
Charles removed him from your case.
Dr. Reeves later disappeared from the hospital system.
I do not know what Crane has done since.
Do not trust the medication without an independent doctor.
Do not trust your father’s medical records.
And do not attempt to confront Charles alone.
Ethan stopped.
His legs suddenly felt heavier than ever.
At the bottom of the page was one final paragraph.
If Nia brought you this letter, then she has already been braver than many adults around us.
Trust her.
Her grandmother knows where the remaining evidence is hidden.
I love you beyond anything I have ever known.
Mom.
Ethan pressed the letter against his chest.
He did not know how long he cried.
Nia sat on the floor beside his wheelchair.
Eventually, Ethan whispered, “Where is she now?”
Nia’s voice cracked.
“She disappeared.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“She went outside one night.”
“Why?”
“She got a message.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know.”
“And she never came back?”
Nia shook her head.
“My grandma told me to wait. She said she would find out what happened.”
“Where’s your grandmother?”
Nia looked toward the hallway.
“She was supposed to meet me yesterday.”
“Supposed to?”
“She didn’t come.”
A cold sensation crawled up Ethan’s back.
“You came here alone?”
Nia nodded.
“Because Grandma said if something happened to her, I had to get this to you.”
Ethan looked at the folders.
Evidence against his father.
Evidence that his mother survived.
Evidence that his entire life after the crash might have been built on a lie.
Then footsteps sounded outside the hidden room.
Heavy.
Slow.
Familiar.
Nia’s eyes widened.
Ethan closed the cabinet.
Too late.
Charles Vale appeared in the doorway.
He looked at the open cabinet.
Then at the letter in Ethan’s hands.
For the first time in Ethan’s life, his father looked truly frightened.
Charles stepped inside.
“Give me the letter.”
Ethan backed his wheelchair away.
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“You told me she was dead.”
Charles closed the door behind him.
Nia moved closer to Ethan.
Charles’s eyes shifted toward her.
Something dark entered his expression.
“You have no idea what that woman has done.”
Ethan stared at him.
“That woman is my mother.”
Charles took another step.
May you like
Then Ethan saw something in his father’s right hand.
A syringe.
