“Lily… who gave you that photograph?”
“My grandmother.”
His face changed instantly.
Elena ripped the engagement ring from her finger.
“You told me her mother abandoned her.”
Richard stepped toward the little girl.
“Give me the photograph.”
Lily backed away.
“No.”
Then the front door suddenly opened.
An elderly woman entered with two police officers.
Richard froze.
The woman looked directly at him.
“You should have told them the truth eight years ago.”
Elena stared at her.
“What truth?”
The woman placed an old hospital bracelet on the marble table.
It had Lily’s mother’s name on it.
“She never abandoned her daughter.”
Richard’s breathing became shallow.
“She tried to expose what Richard was doing with his family’s company.”
Elena looked horrified.
“And the necklace?”
The elderly woman pointed at Elena’s neck.
“That necklace was the last thing she was wearing before Richard had her taken away.”
Elena stumbled backward.
“Taken where?”
One of the officers stepped forward.
Richard suddenly turned toward the staircase.
But Lily shouted:
“WAIT!”
Everyone stopped.
She pointed toward the second floor.
“My mother told me something else before she disappeared.”
Richard slowly looked up.
Lily’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“She said there was a room in this house nobody was ever supposed to open.”
The elderly woman’s face went white.
Because at that exact moment…
a locked door upstairs slowly opened.
And a woman’s voice called out:
“Lily?”
Richard stopped breathing.
