Chapter 19
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I stared at Preston, my wrists burning against the handcuffs. He reached for the strap of my nightgown, tearing at the fabric. I twisted beneath him, kicking and thrashing, desperate to break free.
I tried to roll away, but he shoved me back against the floor.
As the room began spinning around me, my father’s face flashed through my mind.
Then my mother’s.
This can’t be how it ends.
Not this way.
Not here.
Not in this house.
I screamed again, louder this time, fighting with everything I had left.
And then a deafening crack echoed through the hallway.
For an instant, everything went silent.
Preston froze, the expression on his face shifting from anger to confusion. Then his eyes rolled back, and his body collapsed beside me.
I lay there, unable to move, struggling to understand what had happened.
Blood pooled beneath him, spreading across the hardwood floor as footsteps approached, slow and deliberate.
Then a figure stepped into view.
Estelle.
She stood in the hallway, a revolver trembling in her hand.
“I couldn’t sleep. The more I thought about those photographs, the more worried I became, and I decided to come over and check on you. I’m so glad I did.” She dropped the gun and rushed toward me. “Oh, sweetheart. Are you all right?”
“I … I don’t know what I am right now.”
She grabbed a blanket from the couch and wrapped it around me, pulling me close. I collapsed against her, sobbing.
“You’re safe now,” she whispered.
I buried my face against her shoulder. “I thought I was going to die.”
We sat on the floor for a while before Estelle patted my shoulder and rose to her feet. She crossed the room and stopped beside Preston, staring down at his lifeless face. I couldn’t begin to imagine the thoughts running through her mind.
Twenty years of grief.
Twenty years of unanswered questions.
Twenty years of imagining what had happened to her daughter.
Without a word, she bent down and slapped him across the face. “I’ve spent twenty years wondering what happened to my daughter. I hope the devil saved a special place for you in hell.”
As Estelle reached for the phone to call the police, I realized something.
My father had spent his final moments trying to stop a monster.
For twenty years, that monster had walked free.
Tonight, at long last, he wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again.
THE END
Thank you for reading The House on Forgotten Hill, book 4 in the House of Secrets Novella Series.