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Epilogue
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Related chapters
Uncovered Issues Taken
One Lydia thought she’d never been so lonely in her life. She glanced out the window next to her work desk and watched the rain swirling, a light mist that went wherever the wind told it to go. Her story was almost finished- a reporting piece for the Emerald Daily that revealed details about a local fertility doctor, now biological father to over a hundred children. She’d had trouble keeping the tone of the story neutral, reporting the facts and not her opinion on the facts. Her editor sent the story back twice already, kindly but firmly reminding her that her job was not to convey outrage, no matter how warranted. Lydia must stick to the facts. These women were her age. They were raising toddlers and children. The oldest of what the media deemed the Huntington Hundred- many thanks to Doctor Jared Huntington for having such a convenient name- was only seven, and already he had 99 siblings to contend with. Lydia thought of her own two sisters, the complicated re
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Uncovered Issues The Mansion
The winding road led to a winding driveway. Lydia didn’t even realize it was a driveway at first. When Ethan paused outside of the imposing gilded gate and entered a code into the box beside the road, she assumed they were entering a gated community. The mature woods on either side of the narrow path were shadows, and Lydia couldn’t tell how deep they went, but understated and classic streetlamps threw gentle arcs of light onto the road. The light mist that had captivated her earlier-in her old life, before all of this- turned into a steady rain, and Lydia watched the light captured in the drops that fell across her window. When the road ended in a circular drive with only one home centered behind it, Lydia gasped. The home looked like a monument to the past, brick and colonial in the front with perfectly symmetrical narrow windows outlined in white shutters on the first and second floors. Two wings angled off of the main house, however- add ons, but done so well that they
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Uncovered Issues Be Descriptive
She awoke to the sound of too much quiet, and before she opened her eyes, she took a moment to process her surroundings. She remembered all too well the events of the night before, and she wanted a moment to brace herself for the coming day. Sunlight framed the curtains, but otherwise the room was barely lit. The four poster bed seemed to swallow her, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep for far too long and face her problems later. But Angela- poor Angela. The barbaric people who attacked her were so beyond Lydia’s comprehension that she couldn’t imagine being capable of such actions, and she took a moment to be thankful, for once, for her lack of understanding. A knock sounded at the door, and Lydia pulled herself from the bed. Wrapping the robe around herself tightly, acutely aware that she was wearing nothing underneath, she unlocked the door and pulled it open. Ethan stared at her, his eyes moving quickly down the length of her
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Uncovered Issues Nothing Wrong, Either
The plan was simple, or as simple as it could get, given the very complicated circumstances. Huntington was gone, somewhere in hiding. The dead men found in Lydia’s bedroom floor were identified fairly quickly as known acquaintances of the Huntington family, and questioning among the family would be ongoing for several days as authorities tried to narrow down the location of the missing doctor. The appropriate law enforcement were appraised of Lydia’s position, if not her exact location, and they were familiar with Sandra’s company and asked no more questions. Lydia’s job was, simply, to lay low. “So I just stay here, then?” she asked. “And do what?” “We have a huge theater downstairs,” one of the men across the kitchen called out. “And there’s a tennis court out back, and a two lane bowling alley and a pool table.” “You want me to play pool? Just… stay here and play pool?” The man shrugged. “I’ll take you on,” he
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Uncovered Issues Invested in Your Dreams
“Get your hands off of me,” Olivia said through gritted teeth as one of Ethan’s brothers- Nate, Lydia had heard him called- gently put his hand on her back to guide her through the front door. He held his hands up in a sorry motion, and she pushed past him, pulling oversized sunglasses off of her face. She took in the room around her, the grandiose chandelier and the grand staircase and the artwork, her hands on her hips as if she weren’t impressed with the place. Her gaze finally landed on her sister, standing at the foot of the steps. “Oh, God, Lydia,” she said, rushing forward and wrapping Lydia in a hug. Lydia sagged with relief. After so many months- years, really- of not truly speaking to each other beyond the bare minimum, she wasn’t sure what this first meeting would be like. She kept up with Olivia’s life through their older sister, but Maddie refused to play go-between with the two of them and only told her the smallest tidbits. Lydia was
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Uncovered Issues Favorite Place
The days passed slowly. Lydia loved having her sister here with her, and understood the reasoning: they did, indeed, look identical. Anyone who didn’t know them well could easily confuse the two. She might even be worried for her older sister if Maddie didn’t live two hours north of them, in Illinois. Thankfully, she was too far away to be mistaken for Lydia, despite her somewhat similar familial appearance. She also had two children and a husband and a completely disconnected life, disinterested in social media and quietly existing outside of the city life. Maddie was the kind of person who took great joy in spending all day baking. She saw her children as gifts and had no qualms about her choices in regards to them. Because of the tangled web that was her own familial background, she pushed herself entirely into her husband’s family events, disappearing into Thanksgiving meal prepping, Black Friday shopping, and Christmas visits with her sisters-in-law and her cherished mother in la
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Uncovered Issues Never Again
The cabin was tiny, indeed. The front door opened into a living space with a small sectional facing a small television, a kitchenette and a two person dining table behind it. Just off of this room was a hallway that had three doors, which Lydia found to be a small bedroom to the left, a small bathroom in the middle, and a slightly larger bedroom to the right. Small, yes, but mighty- the home had stainless steel appliances and a clean, sleek vibe. While the outer appearance gave off a rugged cabin feel, the interior was awash in modernism with pale gray walls, white cabinetry, and matching white finishes in the form of end tables and doors. Everything coordinated and matched in a crisp but welcoming way. “Did you do all of this yourself?” she asked. “Hardly,” he scoffed. “I designed the layout and got Michael and a couple of others to help me build it, but the interior was mostly Mom’s doing. I trust her opinion on these things so I just told her my favorite col
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Uncovered Issues Such an Escape as This
She wasn’t sure what time it was, and she wasn’t overly interested in finding out. Lying awake in the middle of the night in Ethan’s bed- the guest bed he’d offered her untouched across the hall- she felt content and rested, despite the overall life events that led to her being here. They’d finished their shower and, like an old 90’s romcom, made their way to the kitchen, him in nothing but comfortable flannel pajama pants and she in panties and one of his shirts. There were strawberries and delicious misshapen pancakes and late night coffee, but mostly there was a lot of conversation and laughter. It was the kind of night she’d shared with girlfriends in middle school, staying up late in a quiet house, trying not to wake others while she told her secrets and reveled in the stories that her friends told. It was cozy and safe. And Ethan felt very much like a friend: someone who was becoming her confidant and a person to whom she could glance and share a smile when
Last Updated : 2024-10-29
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Uncovered Issues Epilogue
She saw Huntington only once after his incarceration, choosing to change the channel any time his old case was brought up. She had no further desire to dig into his mind, no further need to know anything about him. In that one glance, she’d seen his plastic surgeries fail him. His skin sagged unnaturally, too smooth and tight across his cheekbones and too loose at his neck. His lips looked like empty bags, and his eyes sagged in his face. Gone was his youth, along with his license to practice medicine and his freedom or access to anyone he could harm. He was effectively pinned down, and though the thought pleased her tremendously, she couldn’t help but the feel that it wasn’t punishment enough. But then, nothing would be. But when she watched her daughter, she couldn’t be entirely bitter. Whatever the man had done was his sin to carry, and she chose to let go of her anger. She tried, and most days she succeeded, to not think of him at all. Sometimes, when Ethan got that ha
Uncovered Issues His Hand
The dress was tight around her middle, but Lydia thought it would be just fine. A Christmas Eve wedding, with a reception in her old little yellow house, quickly and tastefully thrown together with the help of her talented sisters. She sighed, content for a moment with absolutely every part of her life. As she looked around her bedroom- her old bedroom now, she supposed- she was thankful for the time she’d had here as a single woman. She was thankful for the prayers and the company of her neighbors, for the friendships and the memories she’d made. She hoped that the next family who lived here would find the same comforts. Choosing not to sell the home had given her so much comfort, and when she’d asked Sandra about the possibility of turning it into a safe home, a safe haven for some family in need, Sandra’s eyes had shone with pride. She’d taken Lydia into her arms and welcomed her to the family fully, solidifying Lydia’s feeling that she was in exactly the right place.
Uncovered Issues Nothing but Time
When she opened her eyes the first time, she was hanging upside down, and the car was a metal mass all around her. Inexplicably, she was wedged against one of the huge stones, the moss soft against her cheek as if the rock itself were cradling her body. She felt something warm dripping across her head, and she had just enough time to register the immense pain of her broken left arm before she blacked out again. When she opened her eyes the second time, she was in a sterile hospital room, monitors beeping unobtrusively next to her, Ethan’s head on the bed beside her hip. She didn’t wake him. She wiggled her toes and her fingers, noting the cast on her left arm and what felt like stitches on her fore head. She was sore and tired. Then, she remembered, and her hands flew to her stomach. Ethan’s head jerked up, and his sleepy but suddenly alert eyes found hers, relief washing over him. “Ethan,” she tried, her voice coming out in a choked whisper. She cl
Uncovered Issues Precious Face
When loud banging sounded at the bathroom door, she was mildly irked that one of the people staying in the house had crossed into her bedroom. It was a silent boundary that everyone had respected, up until now: this space was large, but even here they were crowded, with so many of them present and needing to stay indoors throughout the harsh, cold days. Her space was her space, and no one bothered her there. She called out, “Just a minute!” Hugging the stick to her chest, wanting to keep this secret her own for just a moment longer. But then the banging resumed, louder this time, and she jumped. “What?” she called, a tremor in her voice. “Come out, princess,” someone said, their unfamiliar voice sinister and quiet. She listened, her ears straining for any sound, but she found none. The house had never been this quiet. “Who are you?” she called, backing against the wall. She dropped the stick behind the trashcan an
Uncovered Issues World Crashing
The house was a flurry of activity. The three bedrooms were full of people, with eight intimidating guards swapping shifts constantly and the others taking their rest as they needed to, sharing the beds of the two smaller suites. Lydia found herself retreating to her own room often in the first couple of days, hugging a pillow and staring out the window, missing Ethan terribly. She considered the insanity of her life, that she was a journalist being hunted like prey by a crazy malicious doctor and his family for a story she didn’t even get a chance to write the way she wanted to write it; that she was now sitting in the bed of a handsome, powerful millionaire in a foreign country, watching the world swim past the window, knowing that her sister was doing something similar somewhere else because they shared a face. But after the first couple of days, existing in a house full of polite but distant strangers no longer suited her, and she began to ask questions. She learned th
Uncovered Issues Between Us
Ethan showed her Iceland. He took her to get hot coffee and bought her a warm wool coat to brace her against the cold wind. His eyes lit up when she pointed at the sheep and laughed at the way they bounced away from her. He drove her past waterfalls by the dozens and stopped at his favorites, some with other people milling about in wander and some so vacant of human touch that she felt she’d been transported to another planet. She noted with interest the way other women viewed Ethan, took in his large frame and his muscular build, and she felt a tiny thrill as she reveled in her luck: this one was hers. There were many men in the world, many handsome and lovely men, but this one was hers. And what a man he was. She found herself watching him as often as she watched the beautiful scenery unfolding around her, and she basked in the glow she felt when she looked up and saw him watching her right back. His eyes followed her obsessively, but she felt no danger in them. She felt
Uncovered Issues Imperfections
Sitting next to the oversized window, cradling her coffee in both hands, Lydia watched a young couple walking on the sidewalk. The young woman had long, lovely chestnut hair, whipping in the wind and occasionally striking her mate across the face. He didn’t even acknowledge it, and their easiness together led Lydia to believe that they must’ve known each other for a long time. She wondered what it would be like to know someone so well that their body became an extension of your own, their hair slapping you in the face a mere fact of your life and nothing so remarkable as to even comment on. She felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked up into Ethan’s curious, friendly face. Something in her chest squeezed tightly. In the few days they’d been here, she’d enjoyed nothing more than the warmth of his embrace, lying in the oversized bed cradled in his arms, the two of them creating a warm nest against the chilled wind blowing outside. She had hope- something that had been in
Uncovered Issues His Hands on Her Neck
Iceland was cold. Lydia shivered inside of her generic sweats and felt Ethan wrap his arms around her. She leaned back against his warmth, into his broad chest, and sucked in a deep breath, feeling the icy wind fill her lungs. She felt better, somehow, as if her body was equalizing to the new environment. A partial rainbow sculpture rose up ahead of her, and she wondered if it had been intended to seem incomplete or if its incompleteness made a statement that she couldn’t quite understand. The colorful glass drew her in, and as she continued to take in deep gulps of the cool, crisp air, she stared at it, feeling her eyes glaze and the colors float in front of her. “Neat, yeah?” Ethan was smiling at her now, and she shook herself out of her revery. “You okay?” he asked, and she nodded. “Jet lagged, but hanging in there. I’m just so tired.” She’d caught a few hours of sleep on the plane, comfortable enough in the seats that reclined behind a divider for limited p
Uncovered Issues What Then
The airport was comfortingly normal, or so Lydia thought. She hadn’t actually spent much time in one, save for a quick trip to Houston for business a few years ago that was evidently boring for her colleagues and embarrassingly exciting for her. People milled about reading magazines and books, eating and browsing on their phones, roller bags and backpacks sitting next to their feet or propped up against their chairs. The air boomed with the lazy expectance of airports, everyone hurrying to get to their destinations but waiting until they were told exactly where to go. The stale air was interrupted occasionally by the smell of cinnamon as Lydia and Ethan made their way from one end to the other, weaving through people just quickly enough to not be noticeable. Chicago was a hub of activity, but even here they wanted to keep their notoriety to a minimum. Announcements happened constantly, or so it seemed. An attempt at lively music that catered to the 90’s era of adults playe
