PART 9
Eleanor took one careful step backward.
“Valerie,” she began, “you need to understand—”
“No,” I said.
My voice came out calm.
Too calm.
“You are going to understand.”
Spencer suddenly moved toward me.
“We can fix this.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
“You hid my child for FIVE YEARS.”
“It was complicated!”
“You let me mourn him!”
Tears poured down his face now.
“I thought he was going to die anyway—”
“You buried an empty coffin!”
The scream ripped through the room so hard Matthew started crying again.
Rosa held him tighter.
And then Ethan quietly said something that silenced everyone.
“There are more kids downstairs.”
The room froze.
The doctor looked horrified.
Spencer looked sick.
But Eleanor…
Eleanor closed her eyes.
As if the secret had finally become too heavy even for her.
I stared at her.
“What did you do?”
Before she could answer, sirens suddenly exploded outside the mansion.
Red and blue lights flashed through the nursery windows.
Rosa looked at me in shock.
“I didn’t call them.”
Neither had I.
Spencer slowly turned toward the hallway.
Then we heard a voice booming downstairs:
“Federal agents! Nobody move!”
Eleanor’s face went completely white.
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And that was when I realized something even more terrifying.
Someone else had been watching us the entire time.
