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I paused. When I first discovered all this, I couldn’t believe it either.
My dad had always doted on my mom, treated her like a treasure. I held onto a sliver of hope that he had made a mistake and was now trying to be a good person again.
It wasn’t until he killed my uncle that I knew a monster could never change its stripes. I had decided then to convince him to turn himself in after the funeral, to try for a lighter sentence. I’d even hired a top lawyer for
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him.
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But I never imagined he would conspire with Mandy to slander my mother, to claim I wasn’t even his daugh-
ter.
That was the last straw. That’s when I decided I would burn it all to the ground.
I took a deep breath. “At first, I didn’t have enough evidence. I wasn’t sure. I was going to wait until after the
funeral to convince him to confess.”
The officer nodded for me to continue.
“The other murder… was my father killing his first wife.”
As I said the words, both my parents collapsed to the floor. My father, from the weight of being exposed. My
mother, from pure, unadulterated shock.
I helped my mom up. She grabbed my hand, her eyes wide with terror. “I was his first wife! He was single
when we got married!”
My grandmother confirmed it. “That’s right! When he asked for her hand, he said he’d never been married, that your mother was his first love.”
I pulled out a file from my bag containing my dad’s first marriage certificate and even a photo of his first wife. I showed it to the police first.
“My father cheated on his first wife with my mother. But he lied and told my mom he was single. At the time, my mother and his first wife were pregnant at the same time.”
“Perhaps he really did love my mom back then. He was afraid she would leave him if she found out he was
married, so he kept it a secret.”
“You’re lying! It’s all lies!” my dad screamed, cutting me off.
I looked at him. “Do you want to know how I found out?”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. He knew he was guilty.
I answered my own question. “Before my brother died, I saw his medical report from a check–up. He was type AB. You and Mom are both type A. Two type A parents can’t have a type AB child.”
“I was young, I didn’t understand. It wasn’t until middle school biology that I realized Leo wasn’t my mother’s biological son. I mentioned it to Mom once, but she didn’t believe me. She showed me his birth certificate. She was sure he was hers. I thought maybe there was a mix–up at the hospital, but Leo looked so much like Dad.”
“As I got older, I became more certain that my father was hiding something. It was around the same time I discovered his affair with Laura. I asked my boyfriend, Ethan, for help. He’s a whiz with computers. He found my father’s old address in his hometown.”
“I went there. After asking around, I finally found a few old–timers who remembered him. They told me he had been married before and had a son. But his wife died the day after the baby was born. They said she‘ slipped and fell on her way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. After that, my father and the baby boy
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slipped and fell on her way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. After that, my father and the baby boy disappeared.”
My
y mom was aghast. “Your brother… wasn’t mine? Then where is my baby? My first baby?” She grabbed my father’s collar, shrieking. “Where is my child?! What did you do with my child?!”
My dad shoved her away and glared at me. “You have a writer’s imagination. You’re just making up stories!”
This happened twenty years ago. He was sure the police would never be able to prove it.
