Chapter 4 - Briar Hill Road
Nathaniel refused to bring me.
I refused to stay behind.
We argued in the rear of the armored car while firefighters battled the blaze that had destroyed everything my mother and I owned.
“You are not going anywhere near Victor Hale,” he said.
“He has my mom.”
“And he wants you.”
“That’s why I should go.”
“That is exactly why you will not.”
I looked out at our burning apartment.
“My mother taught me not to walk away when someone needs help.”
Nathaniel’s expression turned hard.
“Your mother also spent twelve years keeping you alive. I will not repay her by handing you to the man who tried to kill you before you were born.”
Gideon returned from speaking with the fire chief.
“The building was empty,” he said. “The fire started in Apartment 3C. Accelerant in every room.”
Nathaniel’s jaw tightened.
“They were destroying evidence.”
“Or making us believe they were.”
Gideon held up a blackened metal box.
A firefighter had found it beneath the kitchen floor.
My mother’s secret tin.
The lid had melted at one corner, but the box was still locked.
Nathaniel broke it open.
Inside were three objects: a faded hospital bracelet, a tiny key, and a photograph of my mother standing beside a man whose face had been torn away.
On the back, she had written:
Briar Hill Chapel. Beneath Evelyn.
Nathaniel stared at the message.
“There is an abandoned chapel near the crash site,” he said. “Evelyn was buried in the family cemetery behind it.”
The hospital bracelet carried my name and birth date.
But beneath my mother’s name, another line had been written by hand.
Father: Unknown.
Nathaniel examined the photograph.
“Who was standing beside her?”
“I don’t know.”
He turned it toward the light.
Only the man’s hand remained visible around my mother’s waist. He wore a heavy gold ring marked with the letter H.
Victor Hale.
Nathaniel’s face became unreadable.
Gideon saw it too.
“Sir.”
Nathaniel folded the photograph and put it in his pocket.
“We leave in ten minutes.”
“I’m coming,” I said.
“No.”
“I know where Mom hides things.”
“You are eight.”
“And everyone keeps missing things she wants me to find.”
Nathaniel opened his mouth, then stopped.
He looked at the hospital bracelet, the key, and the note my mother had left.
Finally, he turned to Gideon.
“Prepare the decoy.”
An hour later, three vehicles left Aldridge Street in different directions.
The vehicle Victor’s men followed carried an armed guard wearing Nathaniel’s coat.
The real Nathaniel traveled with Gideon and me inside an old delivery van.
Briar Hill stood outside the city, where concrete buildings gave way to woods and narrow roads.
Rain began as we climbed toward the abandoned chapel.
Nathaniel sat across from me, checking his gun.
“How many people have you killed?” I asked.
Gideon glanced up.
Nathaniel did not.
“More than I should have.”
“Were they bad?”
“Some.”
“What about the others?”
His hands stopped.
“I believed they were.”
The van went quiet.
I thought of how easily he had believed Victor’s lies about my mother.
Nathaniel slipped the gun back beneath his coat.
“You should not try to understand men like me, Ruby.”
“Maybe men like you need someone to understand them.”
He looked at me then.
For the first time, Nathaniel Graves appeared to have no answer.
We parked half a mile from the chapel and continued through the woods on foot.
Rain soaked my hair. Mud pulled at my sneakers.
The chapel emerged between dead trees, its roof partially collapsed and its bell tower cracked down the middle.
Behind it, old gravestones leaned beneath tangled vines.
Nathaniel found Evelyn’s grave.
Her name was carved into black stone.
EVELYN ROSE GRAVES
BELOVED SISTER
1987–2014
My mother’s note had said beneath Evelyn.
Gideon searched the grave marker and found a small brass keyhole hidden beneath the stone ledge.
The key from the metal box fit.
Something clicked.
A narrow section of the grave’s stone base slid forward, revealing a waterproof metal cylinder.
Nathaniel removed it.
Inside was a flash drive and a folded letter.
He opened the letter.
Nathaniel,
If Claire brings Ruby to you, then Victor has found them.
Ruby is not Victor’s child.
She is Evelyn’s.
I stared at the words.
Nathaniel read them twice.
Then a third time.
“That’s impossible,” he whispered.
“What does it mean?”
He did not answer.
I pulled the letter from his hands and continued reading.
The night Evelyn discovered Victor’s operation, she also discovered she was pregnant. She knew Victor would use the baby to control her, so Claire agreed to disappear and raise the child as her own. The hospital records were changed. Claire became Ruby’s mother in every way that mattered.
My knees weakened.
Nathaniel caught me before I fell.
“No,” I said. “Claire is my mother.”
“Yes,” he said immediately. “She is.”
“But the letter says—”
“She raised you. She protected you. She loved you. Nothing on that paper changes who your mother is.”
“Then Evelyn…”
Nathaniel looked at the grave.
“Evelyn gave birth to you before she died.”
A sound came from inside the chapel.
A woman cried out.
“Ruby!”
My mother.
I ran toward the door.
Nathaniel grabbed my backpack and pulled me back.
“Wait.”
The chapel doors swung open.
Victor Hale stepped into the rain.
He was tall, broad, and handsome in a way that made his smile feel more dangerous. His dark coat was perfectly dry.
Two men dragged my mother behind him.
Her hands were bound.
Blood ran from the corner of her mouth.
“Ruby, don’t come closer!” she screamed.
Victor pressed a gun against her head.
Nathaniel moved in front of me.
“You asked me to come alone.”
Victor smiled.
“You were never good at following instructions.”
His eyes shifted toward the metal cylinder.
“You found Evelyn’s confession.”
Nathaniel raised his weapon.
Victor pushed the gun harder against my mother’s temple.
“Drop it.”
Nathaniel did.
Gideon reluctantly did the same.
Victor’s gaze settled on me.
“My daughter.”
The word made my stomach turn.
Nathaniel stepped forward.
“The letter says she is not yours.”
Victor laughed.
“Evelyn wanted you to believe that.”
“Do not speak her name.”
“She loved me once.”
“You murdered her.”
Victor’s smile disappeared.
“No, Nathaniel. Claire murdered her.”
My mother shook her head violently.
“He’s lying!”
Victor motioned toward the flash drive.
“Play the recording.”
Nathaniel held it tightly.
“What recording?”
“The one that proves Claire cut Evelyn’s brake lines and stole her baby.”
I looked at my mother.
She stared at me with terror in her eyes.
“Ruby, listen to me. Nothing he says is true.”
Victor smiled again.
“Then why has she lied to you every day of your life?”
A red laser appeared on Nathaniel’s chest.
Then another landed on Gideon.
Gunmen surrounded us among the trees.
Victor extended his hand toward me.
“Come to your father, Ruby.”
My mother screamed.
I stepped backward.
Victor’s expression darkened.
“Take the child.”
Before his men could move, the old chapel bell rang.
Everyone froze.
The cracked bell had not moved in years.
May you like
It rang again.
Then gunfire erupted from the woods.
