Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Pretended to Die
Police found Margaret the following morning.
She was sitting in a diner twenty miles away.
Alive.
Uninjured.
And completely unwilling to apologize for frightening Noah.
She admitted the collapse had been staged.
She knew Noah occasionally climbed the oak because she had watched the site before demolition.
She deliberately walked beneath him.
When he startled her, she exaggerated the fall, held her breath briefly when he checked her incorrectly, and waited until he climbed back into the tree.
The photograph was deliberately shown.
So was the smile.
Claire’s anger was immediate.
“You terrorized my son.”
“Yes.”
“You let him believe he'd killed you.”
“For less than two minutes.”
“That doesn't make it better.”
Margaret lowered her eyes.
“No. It doesn't.”
She had believed David was ignoring her warnings because the Bellweather redevelopment was worth $38 million.
David showed her the intercepted correspondence.
His corporate attorney, Martin Hale, had categorized her letters as nuisance claims and never forwarded them.
For the first time Margaret looked shaken.
She had manipulated a child based partly on a false assumption.
But that did not explain everything.
“Why Noah?” David demanded.
Margaret looked toward him.
“Because Nathan told me to find him.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
Before Nathan died, he gave Margaret instructions.
If the brick building were ever scheduled for demolition, she was to locate David’s son when the boy reached ten.
Noah was four at the time.
Nathan had already noticed his extraordinary resemblance to himself.
Why ten?
Margaret refused to answer.
“What about the writing on the photograph?” Claire asked.
Margaret’s face tightened.
“I didn't write it.”
“Who did?”
“I don't know.”
“Then how did you have it?”
“Samuel gave it to me.”
Everyone stopped.
Samuel had survived.
Margaret finally admitted she found him in 2011 living under another identity.
He had died three years later.
Before death, he gave her the photograph.
But he refused to explain the impossible name on back.
He only said:
“When another ten-year-old Carter stands beneath that tree, you'll understand.”
Noah felt cold.
“What was Samuel’s new name?”
Margaret answered:
“Caleb Reed.”
Police immediately searched Reed family.
Caleb had a son.
Owen.
And Owen had an eleven-year-old son named Eli.
Eli Reed had disappeared from a school trip forty-eight hours earlier.
His backpack was found that afternoon.
May you like
Inside the abandoned brick building.
Along with a blue hoodie identical to Noah’s.
