Emma's POV
I run to Lily's room, my heart pounding so hard it might explode.
Empty. The window wide open. Cold morning air rushing in.
"LILY!" My scream tears through the safe house.
Mom runs in behind me, sees the empty bed, and goes pale. "No. No, this can't be happening again."
I'm hyperventilating, can't breathe, the room spinning around me. My baby. Someone took my baby while we were distracted by Ryan's visit.
"Emma, look." Mom points to the windowsill. There's a small object there—a USB drive with a note attached.
I grab it with shaking hands. The note says: "Want to know who I really am? Watch this. Then come to the cemetery. Alone. —Your Father's Killer"
My father's killer? My dad died of a heart attack when I was sixteen. Natural causes. The doctors said so.
"We need to call the police," Mom says, already reaching for her phone.
"NO!" I grab her wrist. "The message said they'll know if we tell anyone. They'll hurt Lily."
"Emma, we can't handle this alone—"
"We won't be alone." I pull out my phone. "Nathan said he's fifteen minutes away. We'll show him. We'll figure this out together."
Mom looks torn, but finally nods. "Okay. But if we don't hear from Lily in the next hour, I'm calling every cop in the state. I don't care what they threaten."
We go back to the kitchen and wait in agonizing silence. Every second feels like an hour. Every sound makes me jump, hoping it's Lily, fearing it's someone coming to hurt us.
Finally, we hear tires on gravel. Nathan's car pulls up.
He bursts through the door, his wounded shoulder wrapped in fresh bandages. "Emma, I got here as fast as—" He stops when he sees our faces. "What happened? What's wrong?"
"Lily's gone." My voice breaks. "Someone took her. Again."
Nathan's face goes from concerned to deadly serious in an instant. "When?"
"Just now. While Ryan was here distracting us. They left this." I show him the USB drive and note.
Nathan reads the note, his jaw tightening. "Your father's killer? Emma, your father died of natural causes."
"That's what we thought." Mom's voice is hollow. "But what if we were wrong? What if everything we've believed is a lie?"
Nathan takes the USB drive. "We need to see what's on this. But first—" He pulls out his phone and opens a tracking app. "I put a GPS tracker in Lily's rabbit yesterday. The stuffed one she carries everywhere. If whoever took her didn't find it, we can track her."
Hope surges through me. "You did?"
"I learned from Ryan's mistake. Always have a backup plan." Nathan's fingers fly over his phone screen. "Got it. The signal is active. She's moving—looks like they're heading toward downtown Riverside."
"Then let's go!" I'm already moving toward the door.
"Wait." Nathan grabs my arm gently. "We can't just chase them. That's what they expect. We need to be smart about this." He holds up the USB drive. "Let's see what they want us to know first. Then we'll rescue Lily with a plan, not panic."
Every instinct screams at me to run after my daughter immediately. But Nathan's right. Rushing in blind could get Lily killed.
"Five minutes," I say. "We watch whatever's on that drive, then we go. Deal?"
"Deal."
Nathan plugs the USB into Mom's laptop. A video file opens automatically.
The footage is old—at least twenty years old, judging by the quality. It shows a hospital room. A man lies in bed, hooked up to machines. His face is gray, struggling to breathe.
My breath catches. "That's my father."
"When was this taken?" Nathan asks.
"The night he died. I was sixteen. Mom called me at a friend's house, told me to come to the hospital immediately." Tears blur my vision. "By the time I got there, he was already gone."
But in the video, Dad is still alive. A nurse enters the room—someone I don't recognize. She checks his IV, then pulls something from her pocket. A syringe.
"What's she doing?" Mom whispers.
We watch in horror as the nurse injects something into Dad's IV line. Within seconds, his heart monitor goes crazy. He convulses, gasping for air.
The nurse doesn't call for help. She just stands there, watching him die.
When his heart monitor flatlines, she calmly removes the syringe, wipes down the IV port, and walks out like nothing happened.
The video ends.
I can't breathe. Can't process what I just saw. "Someone murdered my father."
"That nurse," Mom says, her voice shaking. "I don't remember her. She wasn't one of his regular nurses."
Nathan rewinds the video, pausing on the nurse's face. "I'm running facial recognition." He pulls out his laptop, uploads a screenshot. "Give me a minute."
While we wait, my mind races. Dad was murdered. Someone killed him and made it look like natural causes. But who? And why?
"Got a match," Nathan says grimly. He turns the laptop toward us.
The facial recognition shows a profile: Margaret Chen, age 42 at the time, worked at Riverside Hospital for six months before disappearing. No current address. No employment records after 1999.
"She vanished right after Dad died," I realize.
"Not vanished," Nathan corrects, scrolling through more information. "Changed her name. Look at this." He pulls up a marriage certificate from 2000. Margaret Chen became Margaret Sullivan when she married someone.
My heart stops. "Sullivan? Is she related to Ryan?"
"Not Ryan." Nathan's face is grim. "His father. Margaret Chen married Ryan's father two years after your dad died. Which means—"
"Ryan's stepmother killed my father." The words sound insane even as I say them. "But why? Dad didn't even know Ryan's family. We didn't meet Ryan until I was in college."
"Maybe they wanted you to meet him," Mom says slowly. "Maybe your father's death was planned to make you vulnerable. Isolated. Easier to manipulate."
Nathan nods. "It's possible. Abusers often choose victims who've experienced recent trauma or loss. It makes them more likely to attach to someone who shows them attention."
My mind reels. "So Ryan's family has been targeting me since I was sixteen? They murdered my father to make me easier prey?"
"Or," Nathan says carefully, "there's something about your family they wanted. Something your father had that they needed."
"Like what? We weren't rich. We were normal middle-class people."
Mom's face goes white. "The company. Emma, your father's company."
I'd almost forgotten about it. Dad owned a small pharmaceutical company—nothing major, just a few patents and some research contracts. When he died, the company went to Mom, who sold it a year later.
"Who did you sell it to?" Nathan asks.
"A company called Chen Pharmaceuticals. They offered a good price during a difficult time. I took it." Mom's hands shake. "Oh God. Margaret Chen. She bought my husband's company after murdering him."
"What did the company do?" Nathan's already searching online. "What made it valuable?"
"Dad was researching something," I say, trying to remember. "He was excited about it in the months before he died. Some kind of drug that could affect memory. He said it would help Alzheimer's patients recover lost memories."
Nathan and I lock eyes, the same horrifying realization hitting us both.
"A drug that affects memory," Nathan says slowly. "Emma, what if they didn't just want your father's research? What if they've been using it? On you?"
The room tilts. "You think Ryan has been drugging me? Making me forget things? Planting false memories?"
"It would explain everything. Why you can't remember certain events. Why you have memories of things that never happened. Why you doubted yourself so easily." Nathan's voice is urgent. "Emma, what if your father discovered something that could control people's memories, and Ryan's family killed him for it? What if they've been experimenting on you for years?"
Before I can respond, my phone rings.
Unknown number.
I answer on speaker. "Where's my daughter?"
A voice I don't recognize—distorted, mechanical—speaks: "You're getting closer to the truth, Emma. Good. That's what I wanted. Now you understand what you're really dealing with."
"Who are you?"
"I'm the person who's been protecting you for twenty years. Ever since my sister murdered your father."
My blood turns to ice. "Your sister? Margaret Chen is your sister?"
"Was my sister. She's dead now. I killed her last year when I found out what she'd been doing. But the damage was already done. She and her stepson Ryan had been using your father's research for decades. Creating a drug that erases and implants memories. Turning innocent people into puppets."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you deserve to know the truth before you die." The voice pauses. "Tonight at midnight, come to your father's grave. I'll tell you everything—how they killed him, how they've controlled you, why they wanted you specifically. And if you're very good, I might even let you see Lily one last time before I finish what my sister started."
"Please, don't hurt her—"
"That depends entirely on you. Come alone. Tell Nathan or your mother or the police, and Lily's body will never be found. You have eleven hours, Emma. Use them wisely."
The line goes dead.
I look at Nathan and Mom, my whole body shaking. "What do I do?"
Nathan's face is set with determination. "We follow the tracker. We get Lily back before midnight. Then we end this."
"But what if they know about the tracker? What if it's a trap?"
"Everything has been a trap since the beginning," Mom says grimly. "But we don't have a choice. We fight or we lose Lily forever."
Nathan pulls up the tracker on his phone. "She's stopped moving. Looks like they're at an old warehouse on the edge of town. Industrial district. Lots of abandoned buildings."
"Perfect place for an ambush," I mutter.
"Then we don't give them what they expect." Nathan's eyes are fierce. "We don't wait until midnight. We don't come alone. We go now, we go smart, and we get Lily back."
"How?" I ask desperately.
Nathan pulls out his phone and makes a call. "Detective Miller? It's Nathan Cross. Remember that favor you owe me from the Anderson case? I need to call it in. Right now."
While Nathan explains the situation to someone he trusts on the police force, I stare at my father's face frozen on the laptop screen. The last image before he died.
Someone murdered him to steal his research. Someone used that research to control my memories, my thoughts, my entire life.
Ryan was just a tool. His stepmother Margaret was the real villain. And now Margaret's sibling is finishing what she started.
But why? What do they want from me?
"Emma." Mom touches my shoulder. "Whatever happens tonight, I need you to know—your father would be so proud of you. You're fighting back. You're not letting them win."
"I haven't won yet."
"But you will." Mom's voice is fierce with conviction. "Because you're your father's daughter. And he never gave up on anything he loved."
Nathan hangs up his phone. "Detective Miller is sending an undercover unit to the warehouse. They'll be in position in thirty minutes. We'll coordinate with them."
"And if it goes wrong?"
Nathan takes my hand, his eyes intense. "Then we improvise. Like we've been doing since this started. Emma, you've survived ten years of Ryan's abuse. You've survived losing your father, losing Sophie, thinking you lost your mother. You're the strongest person I know. Whatever happens tonight, we face it together."
I squeeze his hand, drawing strength from his touch. "Together."
We head for the door, ready to rescue Lily and end this nightmare once and for all.
But as I step outside, something makes me look back at the laptop screen.
The video has auto-played to the next file on the USB drive. Another video, starting automatically.
This one shows a teenage girl—maybe fifteen or sixteen—crying in what looks like a hospital waiting room.
It takes me a moment to recognize her.
It's me.
The night Dad died.
But I'm not alone in the waiting room. Someone sits next to me, comforting me, hugging me.
A young man. Maybe eighteen or nineteen.
When he turns toward the camera, my blood freezes.
It's Ryan.
Ryan was there the night my father died. Ryan was with me at the hospital.
But that's impossible. I didn't meet Ryan until I was twenty-two. At a college party. Six years after Dad's death.
That's what I've always remembered.
But the video shows the truth: Ryan and I knew each other when I was sixteen.
Which means everything I remember about how we met is a lie.
Which means someone has been controlling my memories for ten years.
And I never even knew.