Chapter 7 - The Dead Sister
I sprinted into the intensive care unit and found Mark sitting up in his hospital bed.
He was coughing violently, and his throat was raw from forcefully removing the ventilator tube.
I threw my arms around him, weeping uncontrollably as I buried my face in his chest.
"Sarah, you have to listen to me carefully," Mark rasped, gripping my shoulders with surprising strength.
Detective Miller stood at the foot of the bed, his notebook open and a grim expression on his face.
"Gary didn't clone my phone, he was using it to communicate with my sister," Mark choked out.
I stared at him in utter confusion, my mind struggling to process his words.
"Mark, your sister Chloe drowned in a boating accident when you were a teenager," I said gently, thinking the poison had damaged his memory.
Mark shook his head, fresh tears spilling down his pale cheeks.
"Gary lied to everyone," Mark sobbed, his voice breaking under the weight of a twenty-year-old secret.
"Chloe didn't drown, Gary kidnapped her because my mother was planning to divorce him and take us away," he confessed.
Gary had raised Chloe in secret, brainwashing her to believe that Mark and his mother had abandoned her.
"Nurse Collins is Chloe," Detective Miller confirmed, reading a background check file on his tablet.
"She forged her nursing credentials using a stolen identity, all funded by Gary's offshore accounts," the detective explained.
Gary had planted Chloe in the hospital years ago, planning to slowly kill me and frame Mark for the crime.
Gary wanted Mark to go to prison so he could finally take full custody of Lily, replacing the family he had destroyed.
"But why would Chloe help him kill an innocent child?" I asked in absolute horror.
"Because Gary convinced Chloe that Lily is the exact reincarnation of my mother, the woman she hates," Mark explained tearfully.
I felt a sickening dread settle in my stomach as I realized how deeply insane this conspiracy truly was.
"If she hates my mother, she will take Lily to the one place that started all of this," Mark said urgently.
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"They are taking her to the old lake cabin where Gary originally staged Chloe's drowning," Mark declared.
Before the detective could even call for backup, the hospital fire alarms began screaming at a deafening volume.
