Chapter 3 - The Chase Through The StormWe found Claire's car heading toward the highway.
I followed with the sheriff behind me.
Rain hammered the windshield.
My hands were shaking.
Not from fear for myself.
For Ethan.
I kept hearing his voice.
Dad.
Then his whisper:
She made me stay.
I should have noticed.
The nightmares.
The sudden silence.
The way he stopped asking Claire for help.
The way he always waited for me to come home.
I had mistaken fear for shyness.
I would never forgive myself for that.
Claire abandoned her car near an old church.
There were footprints leading into the woods.
The sheriff divided the search team.
I followed the tracks.
Then I heard something.
A horse.
Daisy.
She had escaped the ranch and followed us.
The white horse stood at the edge of the trees.
She turned.
Then walked deeper into the woods.
I followed her.
A few hundred yards later, I heard Ethan.
“Dad!”
I ran.
I found him sitting beneath a fallen tree.
Claire was standing beside him.
She had a hand on his shoulder.
“Don't come closer.”
I stopped.
“Let him go.”
“You don't understand what he's done.”
“He's six.”
“He heard something he wasn't supposed to hear.”
Ethan cried.
“I didn't tell anyone!”
Claire looked at him.
“You told your father.”
I stepped forward.
“You're done.”
She backed away.
“You think Sarah is innocent?”
“I know she is my wife.”
Claire laughed.
“She betrayed you.”
“No.”
“She was going to leave you.”
“Then why did you lock her in a cellar?”
Claire's face changed.
“She knew too much.”
“About what?”
She said nothing.
I looked at Ethan.
“Come to Dad.”
Ethan ran.
I caught him.
He wrapped his arms around my neck.
“I'm sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I tried to tell you.”
“I know.”
I held him tighter.
“I know now.”
Claire was arrested.
But she refused to answer questions.
She only repeated one sentence.
“You don't know what Sarah did.”
Later that night, Sarah was taken to the hospital.
Doctors said she was severely malnourished but stable.
I sat beside her bed.
For the first time in three years…
I held my wife's hand.
“I thought you were dead.”
She cried.
“I tried to come home.”
“Why didn't you?”
“Claire wouldn't let me.”
“What happened that night?”
Sarah closed her eyes.
“I discovered she was stealing from your company.”
I froze.
“What?”
“She had access to your business accounts.”
“How?”
“She was working with someone.”
“Who?”
Sarah looked toward the door.
“Your brother.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
I didn't have a brother.
At least…
That was what I had always believed.
Sarah whispered:
“Daniel, your father had another son.”
I stared at her.
“My father was an only child.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“That's what he wanted everyone to believe.”
She reached for my hand.
“Your half-brother is the person who helped Claire.”
I couldn't speak.
Then Sarah said the name.
Nathan Hayes.
I knew that name.
Everyone did.
Nathan Hayes was a wealthy developer who had recently begun buying properties around Tennessee.
But I had never met him.
Or so I thought.
Sarah looked at me.
“You have met him.”
“When?”
She swallowed.
“Three months before my accident.”
I searched my memory.
Then I remembered.
A man at a business dinner.
The stranger who had shaken my hand.
The man who had looked at me strangely.
He had introduced himself as Nathan.
I had thought it was a coincidence.
It wasn't.
Sarah squeezed my hand.
“He didn't want your money.”
“Then what did he want?”
She looked terrified.
“Your father's land.”
May you like
A pause.
“And there is something buried beneath this ranch.”
