Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
The intruder escaped.
By morning, Adrian had doubled security around Vale House.
Nobody was allowed to leave without being searched.
The seven women from the previous evening were questioned.
None knew anything.
Caroline was furious.
Vanessa threatened to call her father.
Lauren cried.
Melissa demanded her chosen bracelet.
Adrian gave it to her.
Then he told all seven women the arrangement was over.
No engagement.
No alliance.
No marriage.
Nothing.
Caroline stared at him.
“You invited us here to humiliate us.”
“No.”
“Then what was the point?”
Adrian looked toward the door.
“To discover who wanted me.”
Nobody understood.
I did.
The gifts had never been the test.
Their reactions had.
The moment the women were offered something valuable, Adrian had watched who immediately asked what the gift was worth, who tried to negotiate, and who looked at the people around them before choosing.
He wasn't searching for a wife.
He was searching for someone connected to an internal leak.
And now I knew why.
Someone inside his organization had been searching for the frame.
Grant finally returned.
His shirt was torn.
He had blood on his collar.
I stared.
“What happened?”
He looked at Adrian.
“Warehouse Seven.”
Adrian's expression hardened.
“What?”
“Someone broke into the old records.”
My stomach dropped.
“What records?”
Grant looked at me.
“Your mother's.”
The room went silent.
Adrian took the brass key from my hand.
“Where does this open?”
Grant shook his head.
“We don't know.”
I looked at the engraving.
“Maybe I do.”
Everyone turned.
“The service corridor has an old storage room beneath the stairs.”
Grant frowned.
“There hasn't been anything there for years.”
“My mother used to hide things.”
Adrian looked at me.
“How do you know?”
“Because I remember.”
Fragments had begun returning.
A red suitcase.
A kitchen with yellow curtains.
My mother's voice.
If anyone asks, you don't know where I am.
I had spent years believing the memory was from a nightmare.
Now I wasn't sure.
We went downstairs.
The storage room was locked.
Adrian tried three keys.
None worked.
I looked at the brass key.
Then inserted it.
The lock opened.
Inside was dust.
Old furniture.
Broken lamps.
A stack of forgotten boxes.
And a wooden trunk.
My name was written on it.
NORA.
I stepped closer.
Adrian stopped me.
“Let me.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
I shook my head.
“This is mine.”
I opened it.
Inside were letters.
Photographs.
A small red sweater.
And a cassette tape.
I picked up the first letter.
My mother's handwriting.
Nora, if you're reading this, I failed to keep you away from the Vale family.
My vision blurred.
I read faster.
She had discovered that Adrian's father was planning to use her as leverage against another family.
She had tried to leave Philadelphia.
Someone had found her.
She had hidden me with a friend.
Then she'd disappeared.
The letters stopped.
The final one was dated two weeks before her disappearance.
If Adrian ever learns the truth, tell him Michael is alive.
I dropped the letter.
Adrian went pale.
“Michael.”
Grant looked at him.
“That's impossible.”
I looked at the cassette.
“Maybe not.”
An old tape recorder sat inside the trunk.
Grant found batteries.
The machine clicked.
Static.
Then a woman's voice.
My mother's.
“Nora, sweetheart, if you're hearing this, you are old enough to understand.”
I covered my mouth.
“Your father is not who you think he is.”
I froze.
Adrian stared at the recorder.
My mother's voice continued.
“I married him because I believed he could protect us.”
Adrian looked at me.
“Your father?”
I nodded.
The tape continued.
“He was not a Vale. He was working with them.”
Then static.
A man's voice appeared.
I didn't recognize it.
Adrian did.
His face became expressionless.
“That's my father.”
The voice said:
“Rebecca, you don't understand what you've found.”
My mother's voice answered.
“I understand perfectly.”
“You're threatening people you can't fight.”
“I don't need to fight them.”
“What do you want?”
“The truth.”
A pause.
Then my mother's voice.
“If anything happens to me, Michael knows where the documents are.”
The recording ended.
Nobody moved.
Adrian whispered:
“Michael was not my brother.”
I looked at him.
“He was an informant.”
Grant's face hardened.
“Then where is he?”
A phone rang.
Adrian answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He listened.
Then hung up.
“What happened?”
He looked at me.
“We found Michael.”
“Where?”
Adrian hesitated.
“In a hospital outside Pittsburgh.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
My knees almost gave way.
“Why didn't he contact us?”
Adrian's answer was quiet.
“Because someone has been paying his medical bills under a false name for sixteen years.”
“Who?”
Adrian looked at the cassette.
“My father.”
Then the impossible happened.
His phone rang again.
This time, the caller ID displayed a number none of us recognized.
Adrian answered.
A man's voice came through.
Old.
Weak.
But unmistakably alive.
“Adrian?”
Adrian went completely still.
“Michael?”
A pause.
Then the voice whispered:
“Your father wasn't protecting me.”
May you like
“He was keeping me alive.”
“Because I know who killed Rebecca Bennett.”
