Season 2 Chapter 4: The Forgotten Child
Chapter 4: The Secret Behind Daniel's Journal
The footsteps above the library stopped.
Complete silence filled the mansion.
Michael Brooks and Detective Sarah Mitchell exchanged a quick glance.
Someone had entered the house.
Someone who knew exactly where they were.
Sarah raised her pistol.
"Stay behind me."
Michael ignored the warning.
"This is my family's house."
"No," Sarah replied quietly.
"Tonight it's a crime scene."
Another floorboard creaked upstairs.
Slow.
Deliberate.
As if whoever was there wanted them to listen.
Michael grabbed the old revolver from George's hidden vault.
Sarah looked at him.
"Do you even know if it's loaded?"
Michael opened the cylinder.
Five bullets.
"Now I do."
Together they climbed the grand staircase.
The second floor hallway was empty.
Every bedroom door stood open.
The curtains moved gently from the evening breeze entering through a partially opened window.
"Police!" Sarah shouted.
"If you're here, come out!"
No answer.
Michael noticed muddy footprints on the hardwood floor.
Fresh.
They led toward George's old bedroom.
Sarah carefully pushed the door open.
The room appeared untouched.
Books.
Photographs.
George's favorite leather chair.
Nothing seemed unusual.
Then Michael noticed the safe behind an oil painting.
The heavy steel door stood open.
Someone had already searched it.
"They knew exactly where to look," Michael whispered.
Sarah examined the safe.
"No signs of forced entry."
"They had the combination."
Michael's heartbeat quickened.
Only three people had ever known it.
George.
Michael.
And...
Thomas.
Suddenly Sarah spotted something lying inside the empty safe.
A torn page.
She picked it up carefully.
Most of the paper was missing.
Only one sentence remained.
"...Daniel buried the journal beneath the first promise..."
Michael frowned.
"The first promise?"
Sarah looked around the bedroom.
"What could that mean?"
Michael's eyes slowly drifted toward an old framed photograph hanging above the fireplace.
It showed George and his late wife on the day they bought the mansion.
His mother had once told him,
"This house was built on your father's first promise."
Michael froze.
"The garden."
Sarah looked confused.
"My parents planted an oak tree together the day they moved in."
"My father called it 'our first promise.'"
Without another word, both of them rushed downstairs.
The backyard was almost completely dark.
Rain had softened the earth around the enormous oak tree.
Michael grabbed a shovel from the garden shed.
Within minutes they began digging.
Five inches.
Ten inches.
Nothing.
Then—
Clang.
Metal.
Sarah knelt beside him.
Together they uncovered a small rusted steel box.
Michael carefully lifted it out.
The lock had already corroded away.
Inside was a weathered leather notebook.
Its cover read:
DANIEL CARTER
PRIVATE JOURNAL
Michael's hands trembled.
"We found it."
Before he could open the journal...
A flashlight beam suddenly illuminated both of them.
"Step away from the box."
Several armed officers emerged from the darkness.
Leading them was Detective James Walker from Internal Affairs.
Sarah frowned.
"James?"
Walker walked forward holding an arrest warrant.
"I'm sorry, Sarah."
"But that journal is now federal evidence."
Michael stood.
"On whose authority?"
Walker looked directly at him.
"Someone reopened the Daniel Carter case this morning."
Michael's heart pounded.
"Who?"
Walker slowly lowered the warrant.
"The request came from someone listed as..."
He paused.
"...Daniel Carter's surviving daughter."
Michael stared at him.
"That's impossible."
George had always insisted Daniel had no family.
Walker quietly replied,
"Apparently..."
"George Brooks lied about that too."
Lightning flashed across the dark Beverly Hills sky.
Michael looked down at Daniel's journal.
For the first time...
He realized the dead man hadn't been fighting only for himself.
May you like
He had been trying to protect someone still alive.
END OF CHAPTER 4
