Chapter 2 - The Wrong Daughter
I woke beneath fluorescent lights.
For a few seconds, I didn’t remember anything.
Then I tried opening my left eye.
Pain brought everything back.
The brick.
My mother laughing.
Melanie saying I should move aside.
The stranger behind the curtain.
“Sadie?”
Wyatt appeared beside me.
His shirt was wrinkled. Dirt stained one sleeve from the fight with my father.
“How long?”
“Three hours.”
I touched my face.
He gently caught my wrist.
“Don’t.”
Fear tightened my chest.
“My eye?”
“The doctors are optimistic.”
Optimistic.
People use that word when they’re afraid to promise anything.
I looked away.
Wyatt understood immediately.
He leaned closer.
“This changes nothing.”
“You haven’t seen me yet.”
“I have.”
“No. I mean really—”
“I have.”
His voice was firm.
“I watched them clean the wound. I talked to the surgeon. I’ve been sitting here the entire time.”
My throat tightened.
“What if—”
“Sadie.”
He took my hand.
“I didn’t fall in love with your left eyebrow.”
Despite everything, a tiny laugh escaped me.
It hurt.
But it was still a laugh.
Then I remembered.
“The man.”
“What man?”
“In the window.”
Wyatt’s expression changed.
I described him.
Older. White hair. Thin face.
Wyatt shook his head.
“I’ve never seen anyone like that at your parents’ house.”
“Neither have I.”
A knock interrupted us.
Two police detectives entered.
Detective Elena Ruiz introduced herself first. Her partner, Detective Marcus Hill, stood beside her.
Ruiz pulled up a chair.
“We need to talk about what happened.”
I told them everything.
The argument.
The brick.
The broken phone.
Melanie.
My parents’ obsession with Wyatt marrying her.
Then I mentioned the elderly stranger.
Ruiz stopped writing.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Could he have been a neighbor?”
“Inside the living room?”
She exchanged a glance with Hill.
Apparently, something about that mattered.
“What?” Wyatt asked.
Ruiz hesitated.
“When officers entered the residence, there was nobody else inside.”
My stomach tightened.
“That’s impossible.”
“The rear kitchen door was open.”
I looked at Wyatt.
“Someone took him out.”
“Possibly,” Ruiz said. “Or he left himself.”
Hill opened a folder.
“We also found something unusual.”
He slid a photograph across the bedside table.
It showed the broken brick inside an evidence bag.
Beside it was another object.
A folded piece of paper.
“What’s that?”
“It was underneath the brick.”
I stared.
Someone had written four words across it.
SHE DOESN’T KNOW YET.
My skin went cold.
“Know what?”
Neither detective answered.
Because they didn’t know either.
My phone rang on the bedside table.
Wyatt looked at the screen.
Melanie.
He declined it.
Immediately, she called again.
Then again.
Finally, a voicemail appeared.
Ruiz asked me not to delete it.
We played it.
Melanie’s voice filled the room.
“Sadie, you’re making this worse than it needs to be. Mom and Dad are willing to fix everything if you just tell the police it was an accident. Nobody wanted you seriously hurt.”
I stared at the phone.
The message continued.
“And tell Wyatt we need to talk privately. There are things about you he deserves to know before he makes a permanent mistake.”
Click.
Wyatt’s jaw tightened.
Ruiz held out her hand.
“I’ll need that recording.”
“You can have it.”
Another knock.
A doctor entered and explained my injuries.
The words blurred together.
Fracture.
Swelling.
Observation.
Possible surgery.
But the damage appeared treatable.
My vision might recover fully.
Might.
After the doctor left, Wyatt sat beside me.
“I’m postponing everything.”
“What?”
“Work. Meetings. The wedding planning. Whatever it takes.”
“No.”
“Sadie—”
“You spent twelve years building your life. They don’t get to destroy that too.”
He stared at me.
Then smiled sadly.
“That’s exactly why I love you.”
The door opened again.
This time, a nurse stepped inside.
She looked nervous.
“Ms. Davis?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a gentleman downstairs asking for you.”
My pulse jumped.
“Who?”
“He says his name is Arthur Bell.”
I didn’t recognize it.
“What does he want?”
The nurse swallowed.
“He says he was inside your parents’ house today.”
Wyatt stood immediately.
“The man in the window?”
“I don’t know.”
“What else did he say?”
The nurse looked at me.
“He said to tell Sadie that Gregory Davis has been lying to her for twenty-eight years.”
The room became completely silent.
May you like
Then she added the sentence that changed everything.
“He says he can prove it.”
