Chapter 4 - THE CALL FROM A DEAD WOMAN
Thomas stared at Rosa as though the hospital floor had disappeared beneath him.
“What did you say?”
Rosa swallowed.
“Evelyn called me.”
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
Arthur moved closer.
“You're certain it was her?”
“I worked for your family for five years, Professor Johnson. I knew Evelyn's voice.”
Thomas looked wounded.
“You knew my wife was alive for six months and said nothing?”
Rosa flinched.
“She told me not to.”
“Why?”
“She was terrified.”
Rosa opened the backpack and removed an old prepaid phone.
“She called this number once.”
Thomas reached for it.
Lena stopped him.
“Let me.”
She took the device carefully.
“Did she leave a message?”
Rosa nodded.
“One.”
Lena activated the phone's speaker.
Static.
Then a woman's voice.
Weak.
Breathless.
But unmistakable.
“Rosa… if you hear this, don't call me back.”
Arthur grabbed the edge of a chair.
Evelyn.
His daughter.
Alive.
The recording continued.
“I don't have much time. Please watch Malik. Don't trust Eleanor. And if anything happens to me… find my father.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Evelyn's voice cracked.
“Tell Dad I was wrong. Tell him I'm sorry.”
The message ended.
Thomas sank into a chair.
Arthur stood perfectly still.
For three years he had imagined hearing Evelyn's voice again.
In dreams.
In old videos.
In the echo of women laughing in grocery stores.
But hearing a message recorded while she was supposedly dead was different.
It changed everything.
“Where was she?” Lena asked.
“I don't know.”
“Caller ID?”
“Blocked.”
“Did she say anything else?”
Rosa hesitated.
“She mentioned Blackwood.”
Thomas looked up.
“Blackwood?”
“That's all she said.”
Arthur frowned.
The name meant nothing to him.
But Lena's expression shifted.
“There used to be a private medical retreat called Blackwood House about eighty miles north.”
Thomas stood.
“Used to be?”
“It supposedly closed.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
Arthur said, “Supposedly?”
Lena looked at him.
“Rich people have a way of keeping certain places open without calling them open.”
Rosa began crying harder.
“I should have told someone.”
Thomas's anger returned.
“Yes.”
Arthur turned sharply.
“She was afraid.”
“So was Evelyn!”
Thomas stood, voice rising.
“She was my wife.”
“And my daughter.”
The two men faced each other.
Lena stepped between them.
“This is not useful.”
Rosa removed another item from her backpack.
A flash drive.
“I copied security video from the lake house.”
Thomas looked at it.
“From today?”
“Yes.”
“You recorded my mother?”
Rosa shook her head.
“The outdoor cameras did.”
“She told me those cameras haven't worked in months.”
“They work.”
Thomas looked sick.
Rosa explained that Eleanor had ordered her the previous evening to take two days off.
Rosa found that unusual because Thomas had specifically asked her to stay with Malik.
So she returned early that afternoon.
From the service road, she saw Eleanor carrying Malik toward the lake.
Rosa followed at a distance.
She recorded part of what happened on her phone.
Then she accessed the house security system and copied whatever footage remained.
“Why didn't you stop her?” Thomas asked.
Rosa's face collapsed.
“I was too far away. By the time I reached the shore, Professor Johnson was already in the water.”
Arthur looked at her.
“You saw me?”
“Yes.”
“And Eleanor?”
“She saw you too.”
Arthur understood.
That was why she disappeared into the forest.
Lena took the flash drive.
“We'll review this at the station.”
Thomas shook his head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him.
“I want to see it now.”
Lena hesitated.
Then she connected the drive to a hospital computer in a private consultation room.
The first clips showed ordinary lake-house activity.
A delivery truck.
A groundskeeper.
Eleanor arriving at 2:08 p.m.
Then, at 2:31, Eleanor appeared carrying Malik.
She glanced around repeatedly.
Thomas gripped the table.
At 2:34, she walked toward the dock.
The next camera angle captured only part of the shore.
But it was enough.
Eleanor placed Malik inside the wooden boat.
She removed the rope.
Then pushed.
Thomas made a sound Arthur would never forget.
Not a word.
Something between a gasp and a sob.
On screen, Malik reached toward his grandmother.
Eleanor stepped away.
Then the security feed flickered.
The image disappeared.
Lena frowned.
“That was edited.”
Rosa nodded.
“I think she deleted the rest.”
Arthur looked at Thomas.
Thomas stared at the frozen image of his mother pushing his son onto the lake.
“My mother tried to kill my child.”
Arthur said nothing.
Thomas stood slowly.
Then something changed in his face.
Grief hardened into clarity.
“Why?”
Arthur touched the Johnson pendant around his own neck.
“I think Evelyn knew.”
Thomas turned.
“Knew what?”
“Whatever your mother is trying to hide.”
Lena closed the laptop.
“We find Blackwood.”
Thomas nodded.
Arthur looked at Malik sleeping safely down the hall.
Then at the woman who had tried to erase him.
For three years Arthur had wanted only one thing.
To know what happened to Evelyn.
May you like
Now he wanted something else.
He wanted the truth to survive long enough to reach daylight.
