Chapter 4 - The Funeral Without a Body
Elena had been nineteen when she buried her mother.
She remembered the black dress that did not fit properly, the wet grass beneath her shoes and the closed coffin surrounded by white lilies.
She remembered Gabriel Mercer standing beside her like a man carved from stone.
Marianne’s car had been found near the cliffs outside Grayhaven. The driver’s door was open. Her handbag and coat were inside. A broken section of railing showed where the vehicle had gone over the edge and disappeared into the ocean.
The currents were too dangerous for divers.
No body was recovered.
After seven years, Marianne Mercer was legally declared dead.
Elena had accepted it because everyone around her had accepted it.
Now Rosa stood in the Bellweather kitchen and told her that acceptance had been built on a lie.
“What do you mean she was my mother?” Elena demanded. “Of course she was my mother.”
Rosa shook her head.
“I mean she was here. At Bellweather.”
“When?”
“After the accident.”
Elena could not speak.
Mia sat silently beside her, watching the adults.
Elena turned to Rosa.
“Take us somewhere private.”
Rosa led them through the service corridor and into the old linen room. It had no windows and only one door. She checked the hallway before locking it.
Elena crouched in front of Mia.
“Go upstairs and stay with Mrs. Alvarez.”
“I want to hear.”
“This is an adult conversation.”
“It’s about Grandma Marianne.”
Elena hesitated.
Mia had already seen too much.
But she was still eight years old.
“You can ask me questions later. Right now, I need you somewhere safe.”
Mia looked disappointed, but Rosa called Mrs. Alvarez and waited until she arrived.
When the child was gone, Elena closed the door.
“Tell me everything.”
Rosa pressed both hands together.
“Your mother came to Bellweather three weeks after the accident.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She came at night. Your father brought her through the service entrance.”
“Why would he hide her?”
“She was injured. Frightened. She kept saying someone had tried to kill her.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were here. You must have heard something.”
“Your father ordered the staff away from the west wing. He said Mrs. Mercer needed protection.”
“How long did she stay?”
“Six days.”
“And then?”
“One morning, she was gone.”
Elena stared at her.
“You never told me.”
“Your father made us sign confidentiality agreements.”
“He was my father.”
“He was also my employer.”
“You watched me bury an empty coffin.”
Tears appeared in Rosa’s eyes.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“He said speaking would put you in danger.”
“What danger?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena turned away.
Memories rearranged themselves in her mind.
Gabriel refusing to hold a memorial until the police closed the investigation.
Gabriel sending Elena to boarding school for the rest of the year.
Gabriel destroying Marianne’s clothing and locking her private office.
At the time, it had looked like grief.
Now it looked like concealment.
“Why mention my father’s driver?”
“Thomas drove Mrs. Mercer away from Bellweather on the sixth night.”
“Where?”
“He never said.”
“You told me he was alive.”
“I saw him two years after your father announced his death. He came to the staff entrance and asked for Mr. Mercer.”
“What happened?”
“They argued in the study. Thomas left carrying a black case.”
“Where is he now?”
“I truly don’t know.”
Elena placed a hand against the linen shelf.
“Did Adrian know?”
Rosa looked down.
“Rosa.”
“Mr. Adrian asked questions before he died.”
Elena’s heart seemed to stop.
“What questions?”
“He found a locked compartment in your father’s study. He asked me about the nights Mrs. Mercer stayed here.”
“When?”
“About one month before his accident.”
Adrian had died when his car went off a mountain road during a storm. The police said he had been driving too fast. Elena had never believed it completely, but she had no evidence of anything else.
“What did you tell him?”
“The same things I’m telling you.”
“Did he find Thomas?”
“He said he was close.”
Elena remembered Adrian’s behavior during the final weeks of his life. He had been distracted, protective and strangely insistent that she update her will.
The night before he died, he had stood in Mia’s doorway for nearly an hour.
Elena thought he had been overwhelmed by fatherhood.
Maybe he had been afraid.
“Where is the locked compartment?”
“In Mr. Mercer’s study.”
“That room was renovated.”
“No. The shelves were changed, but the original wall remains.”
Rosa described a carved panel behind the center bookcase.
Elena unlocked the linen room.
“Stay with Mia.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find out what my husband died trying to tell me.”
Gabriel Mercer’s study had become Adrian’s office after their marriage. After Adrian’s death, Elena locked it and rarely entered.
Dust covered the desk.
His books remained on the shelves exactly where he had left them.
Elena ran her hand across the carved panel Rosa had described. At first, nothing moved. Then her finger found a small indentation shaped like a crescent.
She pressed it.
A section of the shelf clicked open.
Behind it was a steel door with a narrow keyhole.
Elena searched the desk, the cabinets and Adrian’s old files.
No key.
Then she remembered the object Mia had found near the greenhouse with the note.
Elena ran upstairs.
Mia was sitting on her bed beside Mrs. Alvarez.
“Where is the silver key you found?”
Mia pointed to the music box on her dresser.
Inside lay a small antique key.
Elena returned to the study and inserted it into the steel door.
The lock turned.
Inside the compartment were several folders, a digital recorder and a photograph of Marianne standing beside Gabriel Mercer in front of Bellweather Mansion.
Marianne wore a green coat.
On the back, someone had written a date.
It was taken three years after her supposed death.
Beneath the photograph was an envelope addressed to Elena in Adrian’s handwriting.
She opened it with shaking fingers.
Elena,
If you are reading this, I failed to come home.
Do not trust the trust.
Do not let Sarah control Bellweather.
May you like
And whatever my mother tells you, remember this:
She knew Marianne was alive.
