Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Attic
Three days later,
I sat in a hospital bed with a bandage covering half of my face.
The surgery had been successful,
though the doctors said I would always carry a scar,
a jagged lightning bolt from temple to jaw.
Wyatt hadn't left my side,
sleeping in the uncomfortable plastic chair and bringing me real coffee.
“The police went back to the house,”
he told me,
his voice low.
“They found him,
Sadie.”
I sat up,
the movement making my head throb.
“Who?”
“Your Great Uncle Silas,”
Wyatt said,
rubbing his eyes.
“Everyone thought he died ten years ago in a nursing home.”
I felt a chill wash over me,
a cold realization of the depths of my parents' depravity.
Silas was my grandfather’s brother,
the one who had owned the construction company before Wyatt.
He was the one who had built the family’s original fortune.
“My parents told us he passed away quietly,”
I whispered,
remembering the small,
closed-casket funeral they had held.
“They didn't bury him,
Sadie,”
Wyatt said,
his jaw tightening.
“They kept him in that attic,
hidden away for a decade.”
“They forged his death certificate to claim his estate early.”
“But the house,
the land,
and a hidden trust were still in his name.”
I closed my eyes,
picturing the shaking hand against the glass.
He had been a prisoner in his own home,
watching his niece and her husband rot from the inside out.
Officer Miller returned to my room,
this time with a look of profound respect.
“We have six witnesses now,”
he informed us.
“The electrician,
two neighbors,
the paramedics who saw the blood on the porch,
Wyatt,
and Silas.”
“Silas has been talking for hours,
Ms. Davis.”
“He’s been documenting everything they did to him in a journal he hid under the floorboards.”
“But there’s more,”
Miller said,
pulling out a yellowed document encased in plastic.
“This is the original will of your grandfather.”
“It was never meant to go to your father.”
“It was a skip-generation trust,
intended entirely for you and your sister,
conditioned on your father’s good behavior.”
My heart skipped a beat as the legal puzzle began to assemble itself.
The reason they wanted Wyatt to marry Melanie wasn't just for his money.
It was because the trust had a clause about "lineage and stability."
If I married Wyatt,
a successful man they couldn't control,
I would gain full access to the family fortune on my wedding day.
But if Melanie married him,
they believed they could manipulate her into sharing the wealth.
By disfiguring me,
they hoped to drive Wyatt away,
making me "unfit" in their twisted minds to fulfill the terms of the will.
“They thought a scar would make me lose my inheritance,”
I realized out loud.
“They thought Wyatt was as shallow as they are,”
Wyatt added,
kissing my hand.
The electrician had also provided a dashcam video from his truck.
It showed the entire event,
from my father picking up the brick to my mother’s chilling laughter.
There was no room for lies anymore.
May you like
The Davis family’s reign of terror was coming to a spectacular,
public end.
