AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He pulls it out onto the main screen and opens it.
I notice the rain in the pictures and the darkness that indicates it’s evening or night.
Mia gasps out, horrified, “Mrs. Cooper’s car. That’s her car!”
I recognize the car from the picture I’d seen. A red-haired woman is leaning against the door, holding a young child in her arms, protectively, the woman’s face holding the sort of terror that you can only find in the deepest recesses of your mind. The next picture is of the same woman but Halley is no longer there.
It’s a small dark room, Lily Cooper, chained to the wall like an animal. The look in her eye is broken and her state…
Halley can never see this.
I vow this to myself as the horrific nature of the pictures grows even worse.
Lily was kept alive in captivity for days. There are marks of torture on her body and my heart trembles in pity for her and in fear for the woman I love at this man’s mercy.
I could never have imagined Raymond of all the people. I’ve seen the way he loves Halley, the adoration in his eyes. And even as my heart weakly protests, the evidence is being slowly unveiled before me.
But why?!
Why would he do any of this?
“Go back!” I say, sharply, as something flickers in my vision. I stare at the image before me and the grotesque nature of it makes even my strong stomach quiver.
There is no doubt of it.
Jet Stalinski has been dead for all these years.
I recall Halley saying that he had used to come over to their house and that he sometimes brought her small gifts.
Raymond killed him.
He killed Lily.
The next few pictures are more repetitive and then I see one that has my blood curdling. I recognize the two women in the picture. How can I not?
‘They died in a car accident,’ I hear Halley’s voice in my head. ‘An out-of-town trip. Nobody found their bodies for ten days.’
And yet, Raymond captured the deaths on his small device.
The picture I had of him in my head of a harmless, kind man is crumbling, to be replaced by that of a vicious, manipulative monster who murdered a woman he claimed to be his friend and stole her child. He lied to Halley about the deaths of his wife and child and that means he might have had a hand in their deaths.
He murdered his own wife and child.
The front door barges open and Oliver enters, scowling. “You weren’t answering your phone.”
Duke is behind him and he nods at Caleb. “The chopper is ready. It’s on the roof.”
Chopper?
Oliver adds, “But before that, there is something you need to see.” He holds out a file. “Documents. Raymond is more cunning than I could have imagined.”
Caleb opens the file and his eyes widen, fractionally. He stares at the paper before handing it to me.
It takes me a few seconds to process what I’m seeing.
Halley’s birth certificate.
I swallow and put it down, my mouth dry with fear. “We need to go now.”
