Chapter 10 - THE BLUEBIRD BOX
The Bluebird Café had been gone for fifteen years.
But the bank across from it remained.
Jonathan suddenly remembered that Evelyn once maintained a private safe-deposit box there.
She had opened it early in their marriage because she distrusted Whitmore family banks.
Box B-317.
The brass key fit.
Inside were no valuables.
Only documents.
Hospital records.
Copies of adoption payments.
Photographs of young Lila.
Letters between Marcus Vale and Dr. Leonard Pike, the doctor who signed the false paperwork after Lila's birth.
Then Jonathan found an envelope bearing his name.
His hands shook as he opened it.
Evelyn had written the letter the day before she died.
She told Jonathan the truth.
Their daughter had survived.
Her name was Lila.
Ruth had protected her.
Evelyn had seen photographs.
She planned to introduce Jonathan to her.
Then came the warning.
Marcus knows I am investigating.
I believe he is following me.
If anything happens to me, examine the accounts he manages for my father.
He has more to lose than Charles realizes.
Jonathan stopped reading.
Lila continued.
The final line chilled them both.
Marcus told me yesterday that some truths are safest when no living person can repeat them.
The district attorney obtained warrants based on the new evidence.
Financial investigators began tracing Marcus's hidden accounts.
The trail led to a shell corporation.
That corporation had paid a mechanic twenty-three years earlier.
The same man had performed private work at Whitmore House the afternoon before Evelyn's death.
His name was Gregory Dane.
He had died seven years earlier.
But his widow still had his papers.
Among them was a notebook.
One entry contained a date.
Evelyn's death date.
Beside it:
Whitmore sedan - rear line.
Cash - Vale.
Lila stared at the handwriting.
Jonathan looked almost unable to breathe.
For the first time, they had documentary evidence connecting Marcus directly to work on Evelyn's car.
But one question remained.
Had Marcus ordered the brake line cut?
Or had Gregory done something Marcus never intended?
They needed someone who had actually seen them together.
Three days later, someone called the foundation.
Her name was Anne Doyle.
"I worked at Whitmore House when Evelyn died," she said.
Lila sat upright.
"What do you know?"
May you like
Anne took a shaky breath.
"I saw Marcus Vale in the garage."
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