Chapter 5 - THE SECRET INSIDE THE PHOTOGRAPH
Victor stared at the paper.
Sylvia watched him with desperate intensity.
He leaned closer.
“Who else?”
She struggled to move her mouth.
No sound emerged.
Victor took a breath.
“Don't push yourself.”
Her eyes filled.
He held up the paper.
“Did you write this before the stroke?”
She blinked once.
Their childhood signal for yes.
Victor felt his pulse quicken.
“Did you know someone was planning to hurt you?”
One blink.
“Yes.”
He stared.
The note had been hidden before she lost her ability to speak.
That meant Sylvia had suspected danger before her stroke.
Rebecca examined the note that afternoon.
“The handwriting appears consistent with Sylvia's,” she said. “We'll have it authenticated.”
Victor nodded.
He no longer trusted assumptions.
Rebecca continued.
“We found an old property dispute involving Judge Whitcomb.”
Victor looked up.
“What kind?”
“Your father's former shipping company owned land near the port. Twenty years ago, a development consortium tried to acquire it.”
Victor frowned.
He remembered the dispute.
His father had refused to sell.
The consortium had eventually collapsed.
Rebecca placed a document on the table.
“Whitcomb represented one of the investors before becoming a judge.”
Victor stared.
“And?”
“The land is now worth almost three hundred million dollars.”
Silence.
Rebecca continued.
“Your mother controls the trust that owns it.”
Victor leaned back.
His father had placed the property in Sylvia's name.
He'd wanted to protect her from the dangers of his business.
Victor had never questioned the arrangement.
Now he wondered whether someone else had.
At the hospital, Marta sat beside Sylvia.
She read aloud from a Polish poetry book.
Victor paused at the doorway.
Sylvia's expression was peaceful.
Marta noticed him and stood.
“You can stay,” he said.
She hesitated.
“I do not wish to interrupt.”
“You're not interrupting.”
He looked at the book.
“Does my mother understand Polish?”
Marta smiled.
“Some. She learned a little from her grandmother.”
Victor stared.
He hadn't known.
Marta continued.
“Sometimes we speak Polish. She likes it.”
Victor looked at his mother.
There were entire parts of her life he'd never bothered to learn.
Later, Victor asked Marta about the photograph.
“Did my mother ever mention the property trust?”
Marta frowned.
“No.”
“Did she mention Judge Whitcomb?”
Marta went still.
Victor noticed.
“What?”
She looked toward the door.
“Your mother was afraid of that name.”
Victor leaned forward.
“When?”
“Before she became very sick.”
Marta swallowed.
“She tried to tell me something. She wrote letters on a notepad.”
“What letters?”
Marta closed her eyes.
Then whispered:
“H. W.”
Victor felt cold.
Harrison Whitcomb.
That evening, Rebecca discovered a second document.
It was a draft amendment to Sylvia's property trust.
If signed, it would transfer control of the port land to a new holding company.
Victor scanned the pages.
The signature line bore Sylvia's name.
But the signature looked wrong.
Too smooth.
Too steady.
Rebecca pointed to the date.
“Two weeks after her stroke.”
Victor stared.
His mother had barely been able to hold a spoon then.
She couldn't have signed a complex legal document.
“Who witnessed it?”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Gerald Bell.”
“And who notarized it?”
She hesitated.
“A notary employed by a law firm connected to Judge Whitcomb.”
Victor closed his eyes.
Audrey hadn't simply wanted to marry into his empire.
Someone had been trying to steal his mother's property.
And the illness that had left Sylvia helpless might have been the opportunity they needed.
That night, Victor returned to the estate.
He entered his mother's old sitting room.
Opened drawers.
Examined photographs.
Searched through letters.
Near midnight, he found a small envelope tucked beneath a velvet-lined jewelry tray.
Inside was a photograph of Sylvia standing beside a young woman in a hospital uniform.
On the back, in Sylvia's handwriting, were four words.
SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH.
Victor turned the photograph over.
He recognized the young woman.
Marta.
But the picture was dated eighteen years earlier.
Long before she had supposedly arrived in America.
Victor stared.
May you like
The quiet maid had known his mother for nearly two decades.
And she had never told him.
