Chapter 4
The last envelope contained a note that made Chloe sit on the garage floor and cry into her hands.
“If you ever need me, I will come. No matter what anyone told you.”
There was a hospital badge tucked inside the envelope.
Their father worked as a trauma doctor in the city.
Dr. Cooper.
Faye had stared at the badge for so long the edges blurred.
Their father had not abandoned them.
He had been kept away.
Chloe wanted to call him immediately.
Faye wanted to wait until they had a plan.
Their mother found them before they decided.
Her face went white when she saw the letters.
For one second, she looked like the mother they remembered.
The one who used to braid their hair and sing in the kitchen.
Then Edric appeared behind her.
And the life left her eyes again.
He took the letters.
All of them.
“You girls have no idea what your father really is,” he said.
Chloe stood up.
“We know what you are.”
That was the first time Chloe said it to his face.
That was also the first time Edric looked afraid.
Not because she had insulted him.
Because he realized the girls had proof.
That night, Chloe secretly wrote their father’s hospital name on the inside of her wrist in blue ink.
Faye wrote the phone number she remembered from the letter on a piece of paper and hid it inside her shoe.
They planned to go to the hospital the next morning.
They never made it.
Edric found the paper.
Then Chloe screamed.
Then Faye ran.
And when Edric realized he could not scare them quiet anymore, he dragged the old lie out one more time.
“They fell down the stairs.”
But this time, Faye had crawled to the phone before he could stop her.
She didn’t call a friend.
She didn’t call a neighbor.
She dialed 911 and whispered only three words before Edric kicked the phone away.
“Mercy General. Please.”
The dispatcher heard enough.
The ambulance came.
Edric followed.
So did their mother.
May you like
And now, under the bright lights of the emergency room, the lie was dying in front of everyone.
👉 But when Dr. Cooper looked at their wristbands, the case stopped being just another emergency.
