Chapter 6 - The Woman I Buried Was a Stranger, and My Mother Knew Why Vincent Chose Me
I couldn't move.
My mother reached toward me.
I stepped back.
“You died,” I said.
“I saw your coffin.”
“I know what they told you.”
Her hands trembled.
“I tried to come home.”
Reyes asked her to identify herself.
She gave her full name.
Then her birth date.
Then the scar on her left wrist.
I remembered that scar.
She had gotten it fixing our kitchen window.
I wanted to embrace her.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I asked one question.
“Why didn't you find me?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because they threatened you.”
She had worked in hospital billing.
She had discovered patients billed after their deaths.
She copied records.
Then she vanished into Vincent's private facility.
“They made me sign papers,” she said.
“Every time I refused, they showed me your address.”
Reyes radioed for medical support.
I heard footsteps approaching.
Clara emerged with an officer.
She was alive.
Her wrist carried fresh bruises.
She looked at my mother.
“Diane saved me,” she said.
The building shook with a distant crash.
Someone had opened the loading gate.
Reyes ordered us toward the exit.
My mother caught my sleeve.
“There's something else.”
She pressed a folded photograph into my hand.
It showed Vincent standing beside a younger Lucas.
Between them was my father.
He had died when I was twelve.
Or so I had believed.
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On the back, someone had written:
HE STARTED ALL OF THIS.
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