**Eleven Years Earlier**
Some nights refuse to stay buried.
The rain fell so hard it blurred the city lights into streaks of gold and white. Thunder rolled across the sky as a black SUV sat motionless in the shadows outside St. Mary's Children's Hospital.
Inside the vehicle, a man watched the entrance.
Patient.
Silent.
Waiting.
His gloved fingers tapped rhythmically against the steering wheel as children laughed somewhere inside the hospital. The sound drifted through the rain, warm and innocent against the coldness of the night.
The man checked his watch.
11:08 p.m.
"Any movement?" a voice crackled through the radio.
"Not yet."
"They'll leave soon."
"They always do."
The radio fell silent.
Across the street, a group of volunteers emerged from the hospital carrying empty boxes from the evening's charity concert. They laughed with one another, completely unaware that someone had been watching them for hours.
A young woman locked the hospital doors.
A teenage boy slung a guitar case over his shoulder.
Another young man carried a worn leather backpack, pausing to wave goodbye before walking toward the parking lot.
The man inside the SUV smiled.
"There you are."
He reached for a camera.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Three photographs.
Three ordinary moments.
Three lives about to change forever.
The radio crackled again.
"Is he carrying it?"
The man adjusted the lens.
"Yes."
"Then don't lose him."
The engine started quietly.
Headlights remained off.
The SUV rolled forward, disappearing into the rain.
Minutes later...
Tyres screamed against wet asphalt.
Metal twisted.
Glass exploded.
Someone shouted a name.
Then came silence.
The kind of silence that changes lives.
By sunrise, newspapers would call it a tragic accident.
Police would close the case.
Families would bury their dead.
Friends would learn to live with impossible grief.
But the truth had never been buried.
It had simply been hidden.
For eleven years.
Waiting for the right person to ask the wrong question.
And when that question was finally asked...
Nothing would ever be the same again.
YOU ARE READING
Beyond The Truth
Romance**When love finds you... it can also make you a target.** Cassie Bennett never expected one unforgettable night at a nightclub to change her life forever. A chance encounter with the charming and mysterious Jayden Hayes quickly becomes something dee...
