Chapter 5 - The Other Son
The stranger had Adrian’s height, Adrian’s dark hair, and Adrian’s gray eyes.
But a scar crossed his left eyebrow, and his expression held none of Adrian’s restraint.
He carried a pistol.
Margaret whispered, “Nathan.”
The man looked at her.
“That’s what they called me.”
Adrian stood between him and me.
“Who are you?”
The stranger laughed softly.
“You’ve been asking the wrong question your entire life.”
He lowered the gun but did not put it away.
His name, he said, was Daniel Reed. He had grown up in foster homes under six different surnames. At sixteen, he discovered that his earliest birth certificate had been falsified. At twenty-three, an anonymous letter led him to House 17.
Inside the cottage, he found photographs of the Ashford twins and medical records bearing both their names.
“Charles found me here twelve years ago,” Daniel said. “He told me I was his son.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“And then he died?”
“No. Then he disappeared.”
Margaret stepped closer.
“You saw Charles after the crash?”
“There was no crash. Not the way the newspapers described it.”
Daniel explained that Charles had staged his death after discovering Victoria planned to have him declared mentally incompetent. He used the supposed accident to escape her control and search for evidence concerning the twins.
“Where is he now?” Adrian asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
Daniel looked at me.
“Clara was supposed to bring you here when you turned eighteen.”
“My mother died when I was nine.”
“I know.”
“Did you know her?”
“Only through letters Charles kept.”
He opened a metal trunk beneath the bed.
Inside were dozens of envelopes written in my mother’s handwriting.
None had been mailed.
The first letters described the nursery fire.
The later ones described surveillance, threats, and a plan to expose the Ashford family.
The final letter was dated two days before my mother’s death.
Charles,
Victoria knows Elena exists.
She believes I gave the original genetic report to Elena’s father.
I have arranged to move her somewhere safe.
If anything happens to me, do not allow Victoria to find the ledger.
It proves the foundation was built with stolen money, and it proves why she needed one of the twins to disappear.
I read the final line twice.
“Who was my father?”
Daniel looked toward Margaret.
Margaret lowered her eyes.
“I never knew.”
“Someone here knows.”
A vehicle approached outside.
Headlights swept across the boarded windows.
Daniel extinguished the lamp.
“Graham,” he said.
We heard doors opening and men spreading around the cottage.
Adrian moved toward the back window.
“How did they find us?”
Daniel looked at Margaret.
Everyone looked at Margaret.
Her face collapsed.
“I’m sorry.”
She pulled a tracking device from inside her coat.
“They said they would kill my grandson.”
A voice boomed through a loudspeaker outside.
“Mr. Ashford, step out of the cottage.”
Adrian took Daniel’s pistol.
“You’re coming with us.”
Daniel shook his head.
“I don’t take orders from the man who inherited my life.”
“You may have inherited mine.”
For one tense moment, the brothers stared at each other.
Then the front window shattered.
A metal canister rolled across the floor.
Smoke erupted.
Daniel kicked open a trapdoor beneath the rug.
We descended into an underground passage just as Graham’s men entered the cottage.
The tunnel split after twenty yards.
Margaret led us left.
Daniel grabbed her arm.
“That route goes to the manor.”
“The other route collapsed years ago.”
“No,” Daniel said. “Charles repaired it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he used it three nights ago.”
Adrian stopped.
“You saw him?”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“I saw a man who claimed to be Charles.”
“What does that mean?”
Before Daniel could answer, a gunshot echoed through the tunnel.
Margaret gasped.
Blood spread across her coat.
Graham stood at the junction behind us.
He raised the gun again.
Daniel fired first.
The bullet struck the tunnel wall, forcing Graham back.
Adrian lifted Margaret into his arms, and we ran through the repaired passage.
We emerged near the frozen lake at the edge of the estate.
Margaret was still alive, but barely.
She gripped my sleeve.
“The ledger,” she whispered.
“Where is it?”
“Victoria has been searching for it for twenty-two years.”
“Where did my mother hide it?”
Margaret looked at Daniel.
Then at Adrian.
“She hid it with the child who wasn’t an Ashford.”
Her hand went limp.
Adrian searched for a pulse.
There was none.
The wind moved across the frozen lake.
Daniel stared at Margaret’s body.
“One of us isn’t an Ashford,” he said.
May you like
I looked from him to Adrian.
“And my mother knew which one.”
