Chapter 11 - The Last Traitor in the House
We thought Victor’s death ended the danger.
We were wrong.
Three weeks later, Dr. Hale found poison in Fern’s medication.
Again.
This time, nobody outside the house had touched it.
The traitor was still inside.
Stellan locked the mansion down.
Mrs. Thornbury voluntarily handed over her keys.
Every employee was questioned.
Then security footage revealed something impossible.
Dr. Hale himself had entered the medication room.
Alone.
Stellan confronted him.
Hale did not run.
He simply sat down.
“I wondered when you’d notice.”
My stomach turned.
“You?”
He looked at me sadly.
“I never wanted the children hurt.”
“You poisoned her medicine.”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Hale removed a small recorder.
“Victor forced me to alter medical files for twenty years.”
Stellan stepped closer.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because my daughter was one of the children in the ledger.”
Silence.
Victor had taken Hale’s newborn daughter decades earlier and raised her under another identity.
Hale obeyed because he believed Victor could kill her anytime.
“Who is she?” I asked.
He looked toward Mrs. Thornbury.
Evelyn went pale.
“No.”
Hale began crying.
“Evelyn is my daughter.”
Mrs. Thornbury sat down.
The lies reached another generation.
But Hale had not poisoned Fern.
He had switched the medication before someone else could.
The real bottle contained enough toxin to kill her.
“So who placed it there?” Stellan asked.
Hale looked toward the hallway.
“Someone who arrived after Victor died.”
We all realized at once.
Anna.
Rose’s adoptive mother.
I refused to believe it.
Then Anna appeared behind us.
Holding a gun.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
My heart broke.
“Why?”
“Because Victor wasn’t the only man behind the ledger.”
Stellan’s expression hardened.
“Who?”
May you like
Anna raised the gun.
“My father.”
