Chapter 14 - THE LOST DAUGHTER
Catherine pushed Noah into the study.
A bruise darkened his jaw.
Benjamin closed the briefcase.
Elena stared at the woman.
“You poisoned Margaret.”
Catherine smiled.
“She poisoned herself with guilt.”
Noah looked toward the hidden camera.
Catherine noticed.
She fired at it.
The lens shattered.
Elena did not flinch.
The room had three additional cameras.
“Why did you pretend to be Margaret’s nurse?”
“I wanted answers.”
“By changing her medication?”
“I gave her exactly what she once gave my mother.”
Elena felt cold.
“Our mother?”
Catherine’s eyes hardened.
“You still call Isabel your mother.”
“She abandoned me.”
“No.”
“She searched for you.”
“That is what Margaret wanted you to believe.”
Benjamin interrupted.
“Catherine, this was not the agreement.”
She pointed the gun at him.
“You promised to bring me the ledger.”
“It has already been copied.”
Catherine’s confidence faltered.
Elena stepped closer.
“What does the missing page say?”
Catherine reached into her coat.
She removed a folded piece of blue paper.
“The final payment was made to the woman who took me from the hospital.”
“Who paid her?”
“Margaret.”
Elena shook her head.
“Why would she steal her own granddaughter?”
“Because I was not Charles Hartley’s granddaughter.”
Catherine’s voice cracked for the first time.
“Isabel had an affair.”
“When I was born, Charles ordered Margaret to make me disappear.”
“Margaret obeyed him.”
“She sent me to a family that used me for money.”
“She raised you in this mansion while I learned to sleep with a chair against my bedroom door.”
Elena’s anger weakened beneath Catherine’s pain.
“You had every right to expose them.”
“You did not have the right to murder Margaret.”
Catherine’s eyes filled with tears.
“She recognized me during her final week.”
“She begged me to forgive her.”
“I wanted her afraid.”
“I changed one pill.”
“Only one.”
Benjamin whispered.
“That one pill killed her.”
Catherine turned the gun toward him.
“You replaced the laboratory report.”
“You protected the Hartleys again.”
Benjamin backed toward the desk.
“I protected Elena.”
“No.”
“You protected the estate.”
Police sirens sounded outside.
Catherine looked at Elena.
“You called them.”
Elena shook her head.
“I did not.”
Benjamin smiled.
May you like
“I did.”
Catherine pulled the trigger.
