Chapter 3
I wanted to chase the car.
Every instinct in me screamed to turn around, run outside, and see who was escaping.
Then Rachel called my name again.
Weak.
Terrified.
Alive.
Nothing else mattered.
“Rachel!”
I ran down the basement stairs.
Ethan stayed right behind me.
“Mom!”
The basement was colder than the house above.
One weak bulb flickered near the bottom.
Old shelves lined the walls.
Dusty furniture had been pushed into corners.
I saw a steel door at the end of the hallway.
Ethan ran toward it.
“Mom!”
A hand appeared through a narrow opening near the bottom.
“Ethan?”
He dropped to his knees.
“Mom!”
Her fingers reached through.
He grabbed them with both hands.
“I got Dad.”
Silence.
Then a sound I would remember for the rest of my life.
Rachel sobbing.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just broken.
“You found him.”
I knelt beside Ethan.
“Rachel, move away from the door.”
“Michael?”
“Yes.”
She cried harder.
I pressed my forehead against the metal.
“I’m here.”
For eight years, I had imagined what I would say if I could speak to Rachel one more time.
I had imagined apologies.
Questions.
Anger.
Love.
Now I had nothing.
Only two words.
“I’m here.”
The lock was heavy.
I searched the wall.
No key.
I stepped back and kicked beside the handle.
Pain shot through my leg.
The door barely moved.
Again.
Nothing.
Ethan looked at me.
“Please.”
That gave me strength I didn’t know I had.
I backed up.
Ran forward.
My shoulder slammed into the door.
The frame groaned.
I hit it again.
Wood split.
One more time.
The door crashed inward.
Rachel was sitting against the far wall.
Her wrists were tied in front of her with plastic restraints.
Her hair was tangled.
Her face was pale.
There was a bruise near her temple.
But it was her.
The woman in my memories.
Older.
Thinner.
Terrified.
Alive.
Ethan threw himself into her arms.
Rachel screamed his name.
She held him so tightly he almost disappeared against her.
I couldn’t move.
I simply stood in the doorway staring.
Rachel looked over Ethan’s shoulder.
Our eyes met.
Eight years.
I had spent eight years mourning her.
She looked at me as if she had spent eight years mourning me too.
“You came,” she whispered.
I swallowed.
“I thought you were dead.”
Her expression changed.
Pain.
Confusion.
Then anger.
“She told you that?”
I nodded.
Rachel closed her eyes.
“Of course she did.”
I crouched and broke the plastic tie with a tool from a shelf.
Her wrists were red.
“Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
I helped her up.
The second my hand touched her arm, something flashed inside my head.
Rachel laughing beside a lake.
Rachel sitting in the passenger seat of my old Mustang.
Rachel holding my face.
A ring.
Not Vanessa’s ring.
Another ring.
In my hand.
A memory hit so hard I nearly dropped her.
I had been planning to propose.
“Michael?”
I steadied myself.
“I remember something.”
Rachel stared at me.
“What?”
“A ring.”
Her mouth opened.
“You bought one.”
My heartbeat thundered.
“You knew?”
“You showed it to me.”
Another flash.
A small apartment.
Rain against the windows.
Rachel crying.
Happy tears.
Then nothing.
I pressed a hand to my head.
Ethan stared at me.
“Dad?”
“I’m okay.”
Rachel shook her head.
“No, you’re not.”
She looked toward the stairs.
“We have to go. Evelyn will send someone back.”
“Was that her car leaving?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t see.”
“Who brought you here?”
Rachel hesitated.
That scared me.
“Rachel.”
“Your cousin.”
My blood went cold.
“Daniel?”
She nodded.
I thought about the church.
Daniel taking my phone.
Daniel saying he had called the police.
Daniel knowing exactly where I was going.
I pulled out my own phone.
No signal in the basement.
“We need to get upstairs.”
Rachel leaned against me.
Ethan held her other hand.
We climbed slowly.
When we reached the main floor, I checked outside.
The driveway was empty.
My car was still there.
No police.
I looked at the time.
They should have arrived.
Daniel had never called.
I cursed under my breath.
Rachel heard me.
“What?”
“My cousin lied.”
She gave a humorless laugh.
“That family has always been good at lying.”
The words hurt.
“My family.”
She looked at me.
“I didn’t mean you.”
“You should.”
Rachel frowned.
“What?”
“I didn’t find you.”
“You were told I was dead.”
“I should have checked.”
“You were recovering from a brain injury.”
“I still should have checked.”
Her face softened for one second.
Then hardened again.
“We can hate ourselves later.”
She nodded toward Ethan.
“Right now, we get him somewhere safe.”
I called 911 myself.
This time I stayed on the line.
Then I called the one person outside my mother’s control.
My father’s old security director, Frank Doyle.
He had retired years earlier.
He answered on the second ring.
“Michael?”
“Frank, I need help.”
Twenty minutes later, the police arrived.
So did an ambulance.
Rachel refused to go anywhere until officers searched the entire property.
They found food wrappers.
A chair.
Rope.
A second set of restraints.
A syringe in a wastebasket.
Vanessa’s name was written on the pharmacy label attached to the packaging.
I stared at it.
Rachel saw my face.
“She drugged me.”
“She said she didn’t know what my mother planned.”
Rachel laughed bitterly.
“She brought tea.”
My stomach turned.
“What?”
“She met me at a café. Vanessa said she wanted to help me stop the wedding. She gave me tea while we waited.”
Rachel rubbed her temple.
“I remember feeling dizzy. Then Daniel was there. Then Evelyn.”
Ethan hugged her waist.
Rachel put her arm around him.
“I woke up in a car.”
I looked at the syringe again.
Vanessa hadn’t just driven Rachel somewhere.
She had prepared for it.
Or someone had used medication tied to her name.
Either way, she had lied.
Again.
A police officer approached.
“Mr. Harrison?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll need statements from all three of you.”
“Of course.”
“We also have units heading to the church and your mother’s residence.”
“Good.”
The officer glanced at Rachel.
“We should get Ms. Carter evaluated.”
Rachel nodded.
Then she looked at me.
“I need to tell you something before Evelyn does.”
The officer stepped away.
I felt dread settle into my chest.
“What?”
Rachel crouched in front of Ethan.
“Sweetheart, go with the paramedic for a minute.”
Ethan shook his head.
“No.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“I know.”
“You promised.”
“I know. I’m right here.”
He finally walked ten feet away with a paramedic.
Rachel waited until he couldn’t hear us.
Then she looked at me.
“Evelyn didn’t just keep you away from me.”
“What else?”
“She tried to take Ethan before he was born.”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“After your crash, I went to the hospital.”
My heart stopped.
“You came?”
“Every day for a week.”
I could barely breathe.
“I never saw you.”
“She wouldn’t let me upstairs.”
Rachel’s voice shook with anger.
“I told her I was pregnant.”
I felt like the floor moved.
“She knew?”
“Before Ethan was born.”
I looked across the room at my son.
My mother had known for eight years.
“She offered me money,” Rachel said.
“How much?”
“Two hundred thousand dollars.”
“For what?”
“To leave Georgia and never contact you.”
I stared at her.
“You took it?”
Her eyes flashed.
“No.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant.”
She breathed slowly.
“I refused.”
“What happened?”
“She told me you didn’t want the baby.”
My throat tightened.
“She showed me papers.”
“What papers?”
“A signed statement.”
Rachel stared straight at me.
“Saying you wanted nothing to do with me or our child.”
I shook my head immediately.
“I never signed that.”
“I know that now.”
“Why now?”
“Because Evelyn admitted it.”
I felt ice move through my veins.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Rachel’s voice became quieter.
“When I woke up here.”
I looked toward the basement.
“What did she say?”
“She said you were finally marrying the right woman.”
Rachel swallowed.
“She said she had spent eight years cleaning up one mistake, and she wasn’t going to let me bring it back.”
I clenched my fists.
“She called Ethan a mistake?”
Rachel nodded.
I turned away because if my mother had been standing there, I didn’t know what I would have done.
Rachel touched my arm.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
“Your accident.”
I slowly looked at her.
The room became silent.
“What about it?”
Rachel’s face went pale.
“I don’t think it was an accident.”
The memory came back in pieces.
My old Mustang.
Wet road.
Headlights behind me.
Brakes.
My foot pressing down.
Nothing happening.
A guardrail.
Then darkness.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because the night before your crash, you told your father you were leaving the company.”
I remembered that.
Barely.
An argument in his office.
My father shouting.
My mother crying.
Me saying I would choose Rachel.
Rachel continued.
“You were going to move to Charlotte with me.”
I stared at her.
“We had an apartment.”
“Yes.”
My eyes burned.
“And you were going to tell your mother after dinner.”
“What happened?”
“You never made it.”
I sat down.
I couldn’t feel my legs.
Rachel knelt in front of me.
“Michael, your mechanic called me after the crash.”
I looked at her.
“He said someone had tampered with the brake line.”
“Who?”
“I never found out.”
“Why didn’t police know?”
“He disappeared two days later.”
A cold pressure filled my chest.
“What was his name?”
“Sam Ortega.”
I knew the name.
Our family mechanic.
He had supposedly moved to Mexico after stealing from the company.
That was what my mother told everyone.
Rachel looked toward the officers.
“I have proof of some of it.”
I stared at her.
“Where?”
“That’s why I came back to Atlanta.”
She lowered her voice.
“Your father contacted me before he died.”
My entire body went still.
“My father?”
“He knew what Evelyn did.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He was scared.”
I almost laughed.
My father had built a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
I had never imagined him afraid of anyone.
“He sent me documents,” Rachel continued. “Bank transfers. Copies of letters. The mechanic’s statement.”
“Where are they?”
“I hid them.”
“Where?”
She looked at Ethan.
“In the one place Evelyn can’t legally touch.”
I waited.
Rachel whispered.
“A safe-deposit box in Ethan’s name.”
A police officer suddenly rushed into the room.
“Mr. Harrison.”
I stood.
“What?”
“We located your mother.”
Relief hit me.
Then I saw his expression.
“But?”
“She’s at your downtown residence.”
“Then arrest her.”
He hesitated.
“She has an attorney with her.”
“So?”
The officer looked uncomfortable.
“She’s claiming Ms. Carter abducted Ethan and tried to extort your family.”
Rachel went still.
I laughed in disbelief.
“She was locked in my basement.”
“Technically this property belongs to the Harrison Family Trust.”
“Are you serious?”
“There’s more.”
The officer handed me a photograph of a document.
My name was printed at the bottom.
So was Rachel’s.
It was dated eight years earlier.
A private custody agreement.
It claimed Rachel accepted money to conceal Ethan from me.
And beneath it was what looked exactly like my signature.
Rachel stared at it.
“That’s the paper.”
My blood ran cold.
The officer said quietly, “Your mother says you signed it yourself.”
I looked at the signature.
It looked perfect.
Maybe because someone had copied it perfectly.
Or maybe because somewhere inside the weeks missing from my memory, I really had signed something.
Then my phone rang.
Daniel.
I answered.
“You lied to me.”
He didn’t deny it.
May you like
Instead, he whispered four words.
“You need to run.”
