Daniel chased the figure down the hallway, but when he reached the staircase, nobody was there.<\/p>\n
Lily tugged at his sleeve.<\/p>\n
“Daddy, the notebook.”<\/p>\n
They searched Emily’s bedroom until Daniel discovered a loose floorboard beneath the bed.<\/p>\n
Underneath it lay a blue notebook wrapped in an old scarf.<\/p>\n
The first pages contained photographs, letters, and memories from Emily’s pregnancy.<\/p>\n
Daniel sat on the floor and read every word.<\/p>\n
Emily had tried to contact him several times. She had written letters explaining that she was going to have his child, but every letter had been returned.<\/p>\n
Someone had intercepted them.<\/p>\n
On the final written page, Emily had left a confession.<\/p>\n
“Daniel, if you’re reading this, someone has kept us apart. I never wanted to leave you. I was protecting Lily from the truth about our families.”<\/p>\n
Daniel’s heart pounded.<\/p>\n
He turned the page.<\/p>\n
There was a photograph of Michael.<\/p>\n
Beside it was a hospital record dated the night Michael supposedly died.<\/p>\n
Daniel noticed something strange.<\/p>\n
The document listed Michael as a visitor, not a patient.<\/p>\n
He had never been involved in the accident that killed him.<\/p>\n
At the bottom of the page, Emily had written one final sentence:<\/p>\n
“Michael knows who Lily’s real father is.”<\/strong><\/p>\n Daniel looked at Lily.<\/p>\n She looked back at him with frightened eyes.<\/p>\n “Daddy, why does Mommy say you’re not my real daddy?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Daniel chased the figure down the hallway, but when he reached the staircase, nobody was there. Lily tugged at his sleeve. “Daddy, the notebook.” They searched Emily’s bedroom until Daniel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metropolitantimeshock.pics\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metropolitantimeshock.pics\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metropolitantimeshock.pics\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitantimeshock.pics\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitantimeshock.pics\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitantimeshock.pics\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitantimeshock.pics\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitantimeshock.pics\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metropolitantimeshock.pics\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitantimeshock.pics\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitantimeshock.pics\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}