My parents had legally adopted me.
That wasn’t the shocking part.
The date was.
The adoption had happened when I was eight years old.
I remembered being told that I was their biological daughter.
I looked at Officer Harris.
“What is this?”
“We’re still investigating.”
Then he handed me another document.
It was a life insurance policy.
My name was listed as the beneficiary.
But the policy had been opened when I was a child.
And the insured person wasn’t my father.
It was Daniel.
I stared at the page.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Officer Harris didn’t answer.
Then his phone rang.
He stepped outside.
When he returned, his expression had changed.
“We found Daniel’s car.”
“Where?”
“About twenty miles away.”
“Is he okay?”
“We don’t know.”
My heart pounded.
Then Officer Harris looked at me.
“There was something inside.”
“What?”
“A handwritten letter.”
He handed it to me.
I recognized Daniel’s handwriting immediately.
The letter was only a few sentences long.
I’m sorry.
Mom and Dad lied to you.
You were never supposed to know.
The children were never the reason we needed you.
I looked up.
“What does that mean?”
Before the officer could answer, another detective entered the room.
“We found Daniel.”
My heart jumped.
“Where?”
“He’s alive.”
I almost cried from relief.
“But Rachel is with him?”
The detective hesitated.
“No.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rachel is missing too.”
Then he gave me the final piece of information.
Daniel had been hiding in an abandoned property outside town.
And when police found him, he kept repeating one sentence:
“My parents were going to use my sister.”
I felt dizzy.
“Use me for what?”
The detective opened the folder.
Inside was a financial agreement.
Years earlier, my parents had taken out enormous loans using a family property as collateral.
When the debts became impossible to pay, they created a plan.
The property was legally connected to an inheritance left to me by my biological grandmother.
My parents had hidden the inheritance from me.
They had also spent years manipulating me into remaining close to the family.
The children weren’t the real reason they wanted me around.
They wanted control of my inheritance.
But there was one problem.
I had recently turned the age where I could legally access everything.
Daniel had discovered the truth.
And Rachel had discovered it too.
That was why they had suddenly started pressuring me to become responsible for the children.
They needed me close.
They needed me distracted.
And they needed me to sign documents they planned to present as ordinary family paperwork.
Daniel had finally refused to help them.
