A Caged Songbird's Escape: Into the Arms of a Predator novel Chapter 444

"Tell me! Tell me where Vera is, please!"

This was the closest Suzanne had come to finding her daughter in all these years. Every other lead had been a vague, unsubstantiated rumor. This was different. If her legs weren’t paralyzed, she felt she would have knelt before Marcia right then and there. To find Vera, she would do anything, even trade her own life.

All she wanted was for Vera to come home. She just wanted her daughter to stop suffering.

Though the study door was soundproof, Suzanne’s desperate, heart-wrenching cries managed to seep through. Elissa heard them, faint as they were, and could tell she was weeping. A sharp, needle-like pain pricked at Elissa’s heart. She doubled over slightly, taking a deep breath to ease the sudden ache.

Inside the study, Marcia was frozen in fear. She let Suzanne cry for a moment before a realization struck her. It had to be Elissa! That bitch must have had a copy made when she got her hands on the pendant recently. The one she was holding had been swapped out!

With that thought, Marcia dropped to her knees, collapsing against Suzanne’s legs as tears streamed down her face. "I don’t know, I really don’t know…" she sobbed, her explanation sounding both genuine and tragic. "A couple of years ago, I fell and the pendant shattered. But I couldn’t bear to part with it since it’s been with me my whole life, so I had someone make an exact replica for me!"

Maya breathed a silent sigh of relief at Marcia’s quick thinking.

Suzanne froze, her tears still flowing, but her eyes were filled with an obvious disbelief. Her Vera… was Marcia? It couldn't be.

Fearing her mother would faint from the shock, Laurel reminded her, "Mom, Vera has a birthmark just below her shoulder."

Tristan seemed to agree. "Laurel, Maya has a point. Vera has been away from us for so many years, she must have…"

"We’ll do it," Old Mr. Wilkinson declared, his voice leaving no room for argument. "It’s for the best. For the Wilkinson family, and for Ms. Carson."

The Wilkinson bloodline was not something an imposter could simply claim. They already had one manipulator in Maya, and that was more than enough trouble.