CHAPTER 6: The Secret Meredith Could Never Explain
CHAPTER 6: The Secret Meredith Could Never Explain
Meredith stared at the folder.
Her pulse hammered inside her ears.
She had spent years preparing for difficult conversations.
This one was different.
Because Nathan already knew enough to become dangerous.
She forced herself to breathe evenly.
"You invaded my privacy."
Nathan almost smiled.
"No."
"You invaded mine."
He opened the folder.
"Why were you investigating Emma Brooks before she ever worked here?"
Meredith remained silent.
Nathan placed another document on the table.
"The payment."
Another.
"The surveillance reports."
Another.
"Lily's medical records."
His voice became colder.
"Explain."
Meredith's mind raced.
She needed a lie.
A believable one.
"I... hired investigators because I wanted to make sure your staff was trustworthy."
Nathan looked at her for several seconds.
Then he quietly asked,
"Before I hired them?"
Silence.
"You paid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars six months before Emma submitted an application."
Meredith couldn't answer.
Because there wasn't one.
Upstairs, Emma couldn't sleep.
She walked quietly into the hallway.
Passing the library, she heard raised voices.
"...you're hiding something."
Nathan.
"I've protected you for two years."
Meredith.
Emma immediately stepped back.
She had no intention of listening.
But then she heard her own name.
"Emma Brooks means nothing!"
Meredith shouted.
Nathan answered,
"Then why have you spent years watching her?"
Emma froze.
Years?
She covered her mouth.
Years?
She hurried back to her room before anyone could see her.
Downstairs, Nathan stood.
"I have one final question."
Meredith looked up.
"Did you order today's attack?"
Her eyes widened.
"What?"
"The SUV."
"The driver."
"The message about Lily."
Meredith slapped the table.
"How dare you!"
Nathan never flinched.
"Answer."
"I would never hurt a child."
His eyes remained fixed on hers.
"I hope that's true."
Because for the first time since meeting Meredith Sterling...
Nathan no longer knew whether he was speaking to the woman he loved...
Or to someone he had never truly known.
The next morning, Detective Alan arrived with new evidence.
He carried an old newspaper clipping.
Twenty-nine years old.
He laid it before Nathan.
The headline read:
LOCAL BUSINESSMAN'S FOUR-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER DIES IN TRAGIC CAR ACCIDENT.
Nathan stared silently.
His little sister.
Grace.
Alan spoke quietly.
"We reopened the file."
Nathan frowned.
"Why?"
"Because it wasn't an accident."
Nathan slowly looked up.
Alan continued,
"Someone tampered with the brakes."
The room became perfectly still.
Nathan felt the air leave his lungs.
"My parents were told..."
"They were lied to."
Alan nodded.
"We recently found evidence that the original investigator accepted a bribe."
Nathan whispered,
"From who?"
Alan placed one final photograph on the desk.
Victor Hale.
Thirty years younger.
Standing outside the courthouse.
Nathan's blood turned cold.
Victor Hale...
The same man connected to Meredith.
The same man whose name appeared throughout Emma's file.
The same man tied to the attempt on Lily's life.
Suddenly, two separate tragedies—one from Nathan's childhood and one unfolding in the present—were no longer separate at all.
Someone had been manipulating lives around the Caldwell family for nearly three decades.
And as Nathan stared at the photograph, his secure phone buzzed with a call from James.
His voice was shaking.
"Sir..."
Nathan answered immediately.
"What is it?"
James could barely speak.
"Lily..."
Nathan's heart stopped.
"What's wrong?"
"She's gone."
The little girl had vanished from inside Caldwell Manor.
And on her neatly made bed, lying where her favorite stuffed rabbit should have been, was a single white envelope.
May you like
Across the front, written in elegant handwriting, were six chilling words:
You should have chosen your fiancée.
