Don't trust your best friend!
Part 2 :
The same warm brown eyes that used to wait for me at home. The same ones that softened every time Noah laughed. The same eyes I had mourned for years.
The woman tried to rise when she recognized me.
Panic flashed across her face.
She stumbled forward and collapsed hard to her knees.
Her can rolled across the pavement, coins spilling everywhere.
Noah broke free from my hand and ran to her.
“Mom!”
The sound tore through me.
I dropped beside her and caught her trembling body. She was terrifyingly light, little more than bones wrapped in fear.
“Someone call an ambulance!” I roared.
People stopped and stared. Someone gasped my name. An older woman crossed herself.
Another whispered,
“But Mr. Carter’s wife is de:ad…”
Noah touched her cheek with shaking fingers.
“Mom, it’s me. I’m Noah.”
She barely opened her eyes. A single tear escaped.
“My boy…”
My chest cracked open.
Because only Elena had ever said those words that way.
I rushed her to a private clinic. The doctor emerged later, pale-faced.
“She’s severely dehydrated and starving. There are signs of old be:atings and untreated breaks. She’s survived something terrible.”
“Is she alive?” I asked.
He met my stare.
“Yes. She’s alive.”
That sentence shattered me worse than her funeral ever had.
Hours later, she woke inside a bright hospital room smelling of medicine. Noah slept nearby, wrapped in my coat.
I moved closer.
“Who are you?” I asked, though my heart already knew.
Her lips shook.
“Daniel… it’s me.”
“No.”
“I’m Elena.”
I shot to my feet so quickly the chair crashed behind me.
“I buried Elena.”
She wept silently.
“No. You buried my twin.”
The room tilted.
“Rachel?”
She nodded weakly.
Rachel Marie Bennett.
My troubled sister-in-law. The one forever drowning in debt, vanishing for months, dragged into darkness Elena always tried to pull her out of.
They shared the same face, but I would have sworn I’d never mistake them.
“Who did this?” I asked.
Her eyes darted fearfully toward the door.
“He can’t know I’m alive.”
“Who?”
Her answer came broken.
“Victor Hayes.”
My business partner.
My closest friend.
The man who stood beside me during the funeral.
The man waiting for my signature that same week to close on more property.
And in that moment, I understood I had spent three years grieving a lie.
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But the worst was only just beginning.
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