Chapter 3 - SIX DAYS OF LIES
Celia’s first question at the hospital wasn’t about Doreen.
It was about me.
“Why didn’t you come home?”
I sat beside her bed while a fetal monitor traced our baby’s heartbeat across the screen.
“I thought you didn’t want me to.”
Her expression broke.
“I never said that.”
I took out my phone.
Six days of messages filled the thread.
Don’t come back early.
Your mom is helping me.
I’m sleeping most of the day.
Please stop calling. I need quiet.
Celia read three before turning her face away.
“That wasn’t me.”
The anger I had been containing became something colder.
“Did she take your phone?”
“First afternoon.”
Celia told me what happened in pieces because the doctors kept interrupting for blood work, monitoring, and questions.
Miriam had arrived at the house carrying documents. She and Doreen argued in the kitchen. Celia heard my mother accuse Miriam of trying to “destroy the family before the baby was even born.”
Then Miriam disappeared.
Doreen told Celia she had left.
Celia didn’t believe her.
That evening she heard banging from the shed.
She went outside.
She found Miriam inside.
Before Celia could call anyone, Doreen came up behind her, took her phone, shoved both women into the shed, and locked the door.
My jaw hurt from clenching it.
“How did she keep you there six days?”
“Water. Crackers. Sometimes sandwiches.” Celia’s voice shook. “She kept telling me I could come inside as soon as I signed something.”
“What?”
“A waiver.”
Celia didn’t know exactly what it did. Doreen refused to let her keep a copy.
“She said it protected the Carter estate from me and the baby.”
I stared at her.
“My mother said that?”
“She said your father never intended ‘some unborn child’ to control what she spent her life building.”
That made no sense.
My father Harold had died four years earlier. He had adored Celia. He knew we were trying for a child before he got sick.
I had never heard of any provision giving our baby control over anything.
The doctor entered before I could ask more.
Celia was dehydrated and exhausted, with bruising and mild exposure-related stress, but there were no immediate signs of placental injury. They wanted to keep her overnight.
I nearly cried from relief.
Then Felix arrived.
He stood in the doorway looking wrecked.
“The deputies took Mom in for questioning,” he said. “Her attorney is already there.”
“Who?”
“Grant Pike.”
That name landed wrong.
Grant had handled Carter family legal matters for almost twenty years.
Including my father’s estate.
I stood.
“Where’s Dana?”
“At Miriam’s office.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“I told her what Miriam said.”
Felix lowered his voice.
“She just called me.”
“And?”
“The office door had already been forced open.”
My skin went cold.
“What’s missing?”
Felix looked at Celia before answering.
“A locked filing cabinet.”
Someone had beaten us there.
May you like
And whoever did it knew exactly what Miriam had risked six days in a shed to protect.
📖 Celia proved every reassuring message I received was fake—and while she described a mysterious waiver, someone had already broken into Miriam’s office and removed an entire locked cabinet. 👇
