Chapter 14 - Elise’s Second ChanceDaniel laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because men like him laugh when the room stops obeying them.
“Elise,” he said. “Still dramatic.”
She kept the gun steady. “Still alive.”
Noah stared at her. “You followed me?”
“I followed Daniel,” she said. “You were just predictable.”
Sirens wailed faintly below.
Daniel’s eyes moved toward the window.
“Don’t,” Elise warned.
“You won’t shoot me.”
“No,” she said. “But I’ll stop you from shooting him.”
Daniel tilted his head. “You always were more loyal to strangers than to your husband.”
“You were never my husband. You were a hostage situation with a wedding ring.”
Noah saw Daniel’s finger tighten.
He moved before thinking, grabbing the locket from the table and throwing it hard toward the window.
Daniel turned instinctively.
Elise fired.
The shot hit Daniel’s shoulder. He screamed and dropped the gun. Noah lunged, kicking it under the bed.
Police burst through the door seconds later.
Daniel went to his knees, bleeding, furious, still trying to speak like a man in charge.
“This woman shot me,” he said.
Sloane entered behind the officers. “After you pulled an illegal firearm on Noah Reed. We heard it all.”
Daniel looked at Noah’s hoodie.
Then at Elise.
Then at Sloane.
His performance cracked.
“You have no idea what Claire is hiding,” he spat. “You think I’m the villain because I put her in a box? She built the box. I only closed it.”
Noah surged toward him, but Sloane held him back.
Daniel smiled through pain. “Ask your mother about the first donor. Ask her why your father really died.”
Noah froze.
The room seemed to lose sound.
“My father died of a heart attack,” he said.
Daniel’s smile widened.
“Did he?”
Sloane had Daniel dragged out in cuffs, but the damage was done.
Noah stood in Room 714 with Claire’s locket in his bloody hand and a new horror opening inside him.
The case had begun with one question.
Why was Claire buried alive?
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Now Daniel had left them with a worse one.
What had Claire buried years ago?
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