Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WEARING EVELYN’S NIGHTGOWN.
Richard pulled back the blanket completely.
The elderly woman in the bed resembled Evelyn, but a faint surgical scar behind her ear did not match.
Victoria ordered everyone away from the bed.
Richard ignored her.
Emily removed the woman’s pearl bracelet.
Inside the clasp were the initials “M.A.”
Margaret Ashford.
Richard’s aunt had supposedly died twenty years earlier.
Victoria finally admitted the woman was Margaret, but claimed the substitution protected Evelyn from kidnappers.
Emily stared at her.
“You locked a sick woman in this room and called it protection?”
Victoria’s expression hardened.
“Margaret has no money, no legal identity, and no one waiting for her. Do not pretend her comfort matters more than this family’s security.”
The cruelty silenced even Dr. Pike.
Margaret had been erased because she married a mechanic and challenged the Ashford trust.
Once she lost her inheritance, the family treated her like a disposable relative.
Richard demanded Evelyn’s location.
Victoria refused.
“If you find her before tomorrow, she will sign away everything your father built.”
Emily reached inside Margaret’s nightgown pocket and found a brass key tied to a red thread.
It matched the lock on the old nursery upstairs.
Then Margaret opened her eyes.
May you like
She gripped Emily’s wrist and whispered:
“Evelyn is behind the wall.”
