CHAPTER 2 THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
The ambulance doors slammed shut, cutting off the sight of my childhood home.
For a few seconds, all I could hear was the siren, the paramedic’s voice, and Wyatt shouting my name from somewhere near my feet.
“Sadie, can you hear me?”
I tried to answer, but my jaw felt wrong.
Not broken exactly.
Just heavy, swollen, and full of fire.
A paramedic named Luis leaned over me and shined a light into my right eye.
“Stay still,” he said. “You took a serious blow to the orbital area. We need to protect your neck and keep pressure on the wound.”
“My left eye,” I whispered. “I can’t see.”
Wyatt’s hand closed around mine.
“I’m right here.”
His voice was steady, but I could feel him trembling.
The ambulance turned sharply. Pain shot through my face, bright and savage, and I nearly blacked out.
Before the darkness took me, I remembered the elderly man behind the curtain.
His pale face.
His trembling hand pressed against the glass.
And the way the curtain closed as soon as he realized I had seen him.
When I woke again, I was under white hospital lights.
A nurse was cutting the shoulder of my blue dress.
The fabric was soaked in blood.
That dress had been meant for a celebration. I had imagined standing at my parents’ dining table, holding Wyatt’s hand while we announced that we had chosen October 14 for our wedding.
Now the dress looked like evidence from a crime scene.
Maybe that was what it had become.
“Where’s Wyatt?” I asked.
“He’s speaking with police,” the nurse said. “He’ll be allowed back in shortly.”
“Don’t throw away my dress.”
She paused.
“What?”
“The dress. My shoes. Anything from the ambulance. Please preserve everything.”
The nurse looked at me differently then.
Not like a frightened patient.
Like someone who understood exactly what had happened.
“I’ll make sure nothing is discarded.”
A doctor introduced herself as Dr. Naomi Patel. She told me the brick had fractured the bone around my left eye and split the skin above my eyebrow. The swelling was pressing against the optic nerve, but the initial scans showed the eye itself might still be intact.
Might.
That word hung in the air like a blade.
“We need surgery tonight,” Dr. Patel said. “There is a real chance your vision can be saved, but I cannot promise complete recovery.”
I stared at the blurry outline of her face through my right eye.
“Do it.”
She nodded.
Before she left, I caught her sleeve.
“Take photographs.”
“We will document your injuries.”
“No. I mean everything. Every bruise. Every cut. The brick dust. My hands. My dress.”
The doctor studied me for a second.
“Did someone do this intentionally?”
“My father.”
The room went silent.
Dr. Patel’s expression hardened.
“I’ll contact the hospital forensic nurse.”
Wyatt was allowed inside ten minutes later.
His shirt was torn from fighting with my father. Thin scratches ran down his neck, and there was blood on his sleeve that I knew was mine.
He leaned down carefully, avoiding my injured side.
“I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t do this.”
“I should’ve known they were planning something.”
“How could you?”
He looked away.
That was when I noticed he was hiding something.
“Wyatt.”
His jaw tightened.
“What happened after the ambulance left?”
“The police arrested your father.”
“And my mother?”
“Detained. Melanie too.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He pulled a chair closer and sat beside me.
“The elderly man came outside.”
My heart began to pound.
“Who was he?”
“He said his name was Harold Bell.”
I searched my memory.
The name meant nothing.
“He told the police he witnessed the entire attack from the living room.”
“What was he doing in the house?”
“He said your mother hired him to repair an antique clock.”
That made no sense.
My mother hated antiques. She called old furniture “dead people’s junk.” The only old object in the entire house was a tall walnut grandfather clock that had belonged to my mother’s aunt, Evelyn.
It had not worked in years.
“Why would she repair that clock now?”
Wyatt lowered his voice.
“Harold said he wasn’t there to repair it.”
A chill moved through me despite the heated blanket.
“What was he there for?”
Before Wyatt could answer, two detectives entered the room.
The older one introduced herself as Detective Lena Morales. Her partner, Detective Grant Ellis, carried a clear evidence bag containing my father’s broken phone and several printed photographs.
Morales pulled a chair to the bed.
“Ms. Davis, I’m sorry to question you before surgery, but there are details we need to preserve while your memory is fresh.”
“I understand.”
“Did your father threaten you before today?”
I told her about the calls demanding that I end my engagement.
The messages from Melanie.
The family dinners where my mother repeatedly suggested Wyatt would be happier with someone “more polished.”
I told them how Melanie had appeared at Wyatt’s gym and office.
How Dad had called two weeks earlier and said, “You should step aside before you lose more than a fiancé.”
At the time, I thought it was another cruel insult.
Now it sounded like advance notice.
Detective Ellis showed me one of the photographs.
It was a screenshot of a message Melanie had sent Wyatt three nights earlier.
You still have time to make the right choice. Mom and Dad already decided how this ends.
Wyatt had blocked her without responding.
“Your fiancé gave us access voluntarily,” Ellis explained. “We’ve also recovered security footage from the utility truck, a neighboring doorbell camera, and the ambulance crew.”
“Six witnesses,” I murmured.
Morales nodded.
“Your fiancé, the electrician, two neighbors, Mr. Bell, and a delivery driver parked across the street. The attack itself was captured from three angles.”
For the first time since the brick struck me, I felt something other than fear.
My parents had always controlled the story.
When Melanie stole money from my college account, Mom told everyone I had spent it.
When Dad broke my laptop during an argument, he told relatives I had thrown it at him.
When I stopped attending family holidays, they said I had become arrogant.
Their greatest weapon had always been privacy.
This time, the entire street had seen them.
“Are they still in custody?” I asked.
“Your father has been charged with felonious assault and evidence tampering for destroying the phone,” Morales said. “Your mother and sister are being questioned for conspiracy and obstruction.”
“What did Harold Bell tell you?”
Morales glanced at Wyatt.
Then she opened a folder.
“Mr. Bell claims your family invited him to the house because they believed he knew how to open a hidden compartment inside the grandfather clock.”
I stared at her.
“What compartment?”
“He says the clock originally belonged to Evelyn Mercer.”
“My great-aunt.”
“Yes.”
I barely remembered Aunt Evelyn. She had been my maternal grandmother’s older sister, a severe woman who wore dark dresses and lived alone on a large farm outside Lancaster.
She died when I was thirteen.
No children.
No husband.
My mother said she left behind nothing but debt and the old clock.
“Mr. Bell worked for your aunt for twenty-seven years,” Morales continued. “According to him, she kept important documents inside that clock.”
“What documents?”
“A second will.”
Wyatt leaned forward.
Morales opened another evidence bag.
Inside was a small brass key.
“Mr. Bell had this in his coat pocket. He says Evelyn gave it to him before she died and instructed him not to use it unless you were in danger from your immediate family.”
My mouth went dry.
“Me?”
“He specifically named you.”
I tried to sit up, but the pain stopped me.
“Why would my great-aunt care about me?”
“That is what we’re trying to determine.”
Detective Ellis placed another photograph beside the key.
It showed the grandfather clock lying facedown in my parents’ living room.
The back panel had been ripped off.
The interior was empty.
“The compartment was already open when police searched the house,” Ellis said.
“Then my parents found the will.”
“Possibly.”
“Did Harold see them take it?”
“He heard your mother arguing with your father before you arrived. She said, ‘Once Sadie signs, none of this matters.’”
“Signs what?”
“We don’t know.”
My stomach twisted.
I remembered the envelope on the dining table when Wyatt and I arrived.
Mom said it was paperwork for updating the family emergency contacts.
She had insisted I sign it before dinner.
I had refused because I wanted to read it first.
Dad’s face had changed immediately.
Not anger.
Panic.
“The papers,” I whispered. “There were papers on the dining table.”
Morales made a note.
“What kind?”
“I didn’t read them. Mom tried to make me sign before dinner. When I said I’d take them home and review them, she said family should trust family.”
Wyatt swore under his breath.
Detective Ellis stepped toward the door.
“I’ll call the search team.”
A nurse entered and announced that surgery was ready.
Morales closed her notebook.
“One more question, Sadie. Did your parents know you were coming to announce your wedding date?”
“Yes.”
“Who told them?”
“I did. Yesterday.”
“And did they know the exact time?”
“Yes.”
She exchanged a look with Ellis.
That look told me everything.
This was not a family dinner that turned violent.
It was an appointment.
As the nurses began wheeling me toward the operating room, Harold Bell appeared at the end of the hallway between two police officers.
He looked even older under the hospital lights.
Thin white hair.
Bent shoulders.
Hands that would not stop shaking.
When he saw me, tears filled his eyes.
“I failed her,” he said.
The nurses paused.
“Who?” I asked.
“Miss Evelyn.”
One officer tried to move him along, but Harold pulled away.
“I should have told you years ago.”
“Told me what?”
His face crumpled.
“That your mother lied about who you were.”
My heartbeat became the loudest sound in the hallway.
“What does that mean?”
Harold reached into his shirt and pulled out a silver chain. Hanging from it was a tiny oval locket.
He opened it.
Inside was a photograph of a young woman holding a newborn baby.
The woman was Aunt Evelyn.
The baby wore a hospital bracelet.
Even through the distance, I could see the name written across it.
SADIE MERCER.
Harold looked straight at me.
“Evelyn Davis was never only your great-aunt,” he whispered.
“She was your grandmother.”
May you like
The operating room doors opened behind me.
But suddenly, the surgery was no longer the most frightening thing waiting in the dark.
