Chapter 6 - The Dead Man's Confession
The heavy steel door swung inward, groaning on neglected hinges as a wave of cold, stale air washed over me.
A towering figure stepped out of the shadows, holding a heavy iron wrench in his right hand.
In the dim light of the hallway, I finally recognized the face of the man who had been tormenting my family.
It was Greg, Aaron's former business partner who had supposedly moved out of state years ago.
"You killed him," I growled, all the fear evaporating and leaving only blinding, white-hot rage in its wake.
"It was just business, Calder," Greg said casually, swinging the wrench in a lazy arc.
He lunged at me with terrifying speed, aiming a crushing blow right at my skull.
I ducked beneath the swing, feeling the wind of the heavy metal weapon graze my ear.
I tackled him around the waist, using all my momentum to drive him backward into the hidden room.
We crashed onto the concrete floor of the secret room, knocking over a folding table covered in papers and files.
Greg roared in anger, bringing his knee up sharply into my ribs and knocking the wind out of me.
I rolled away, gasping for air, and grabbed a handful of the scattered papers from the floor to throw in his face as a distraction.
As the papers fluttered around us, my eyes caught sight of a familiar leather-bound book lying near my foot.
It was Aaron's personal journal, the one he had carried everywhere before he died.
I scrambled backward, snatching the journal off the floor and stuffing it into my jacket pocket.
Greg recovered quickly, raising the wrench for another lethal strike.
I grabbed the broken leg of the folding table and swung it upward like a baseball bat, catching him squarely in the jaw.
Greg collapsed backward, hitting his head against the concrete wall and slumping to the floor unconscious.
I didn't wait to see if he would wake up.
I sprinted out of the hidden room, grabbed a heavy wooden chair, and smashed it through the living room's glass patio door, ignoring the metal shutters.
I squeezed through the broken glass and ran back to my car as fast as my legs could carry me.
Safe inside my locked car, I pulled Aaron's journal from my pocket and opened it to the very last entry.
May you like
The handwriting was rushed and erratic, ending with a sentence that made my heart stop completely.
"Reena isn't their mother; she took them from her sister, and I just found out her sister is still alive."
