Chapter 4 - JAMES STERLING
I called Martin Hale.
Vanessa begged me not to.
I called anyway.
He answered after five rings.
“Richard.”
He knew.
Not hello.
Not surprise.
My name.
“Were you the doctor who delivered me?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“Was I a twin?”
Another silence.
“Yes.”
My knees weakened.
I sat down.
“His name was James?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?”
Martin exhaled.
“He died.”
“When?”
“Approximately six hours after delivery.”
“Cause?”
“Respiratory complications.”
“Did my mother see him afterward?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She was heavily sedated after an emergency procedure.”
“Did my father?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“Why was I never told?”
“That was your parents’ decision.”
“My mother kept investigating.”
Martin went quiet.
“How do you know that?”
“I found her room.”
Vanessa whispered my name.
I ignored her.
“The room with the photograph.”
Martin’s breathing changed.
“Richard, don’t touch anything else.”
There it was again.
Fear.
“What’s in that trunk?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m serious.”
“Then why tell me not to touch it?”
“Because your mother believed things that weren’t true.”
“Such as?”
“That James survived.”
My pulse accelerated.
“Did he?”
“No.”
“You sound terrified for a man telling the truth.”
Martin ended the call.
I stared at my phone.
Then Caroline came downstairs.
“Sophie’s asleep.”
I told her.
Twin.
James.
Martin.
The room.
Caroline went pale.
“I knew.”
Everything stopped.
“What?”
She immediately shook her head.
“Not all of it.”
“You knew I had a brother?”
“When Mom was dying, she said something.”
“What?”
“She told me you weren’t born alone.”
Anger hit me so hard I stood.
“And you never told me?”
“She was on morphine. She was confused half the time.”
“You decided it wasn’t real?”
“I asked Dad’s sister.”
“Aunt Margaret?”
“She told me Mom had lost another baby.”
That made sense.
Not enough.
But something.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Caroline’s eyes filled.
“They thought it would only hurt you.”
There it was.
The Sterling family religion.
Silence disguised as protection.
I looked toward the locked room.
Then Sophie cried upstairs.
I immediately went to her.
She reached for me.
I picked her up.
Her cheek was still pink.
I remembered why this started.
Whatever happened forty years ago did not erase what Vanessa had done today.
When I came downstairs, I told her:
“You’re leaving.”
Her face dropped.
“Richard.”
“You cannot stay here tonight.”
“I was protecting Sophie.”
I stared at her.
“From what?”
She looked toward the room.
“From becoming part of this.”
“She already is.”
“No. You don’t understand.”
“Then make me.”
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
“My father told me someone would come looking for that key.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why did Sophie have it?”
Vanessa finally answered.
“She found it in my purse.”
“And you slapped her?”
Her mouth opened.
No denial.
My stomach turned.
“You hit my fifteen-month-old daughter because she took a key?”
“I panicked.”
“You threatened her.”
“She wouldn’t give it back.”
“She’s a baby.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Vanessa cried harder.
I felt nothing.
She packed a bag under Caroline’s supervision.
Before leaving, Vanessa turned toward me.
“Don’t open the trunk.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother didn’t lock it to keep the truth from you.”
I waited.
“She locked it because she finally discovered somebody had been entering that room.”
That changed everything.
“Who?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“She never found out.”
Then she left.
Ten minutes later, I returned to the room.
The wooden trunk sat exactly where it had for years.
And for the first time I noticed fresh scratches around its lock.
Someone had already tried to open it.
May you like
Recently.
📖 Vanessa was out of my house, but fresh damage on my mother’s trunk proved her fear wasn’t only about the past—someone had been searching for its contents now. 👇
