Chapter 8 - The Dead Man Came Home
Charles Ashford entered the gallery without hurry.
He was older than the photographs, thinner, and marked by a pale scar extending from his temple to his jaw. Snow melted on the shoulders of his black coat.
Adrian stared at him.
Daniel raised his weapon.
Victoria remained seated.
“You’re alive,” Adrian said.
Charles looked at both men.
“So are you. That is already more than I was promised.”
He stepped over broken glass and poured himself a drink.
No one stopped him.
Pierce’s officers guarded the doors.
Graham stood beside Victoria.
The entire room seemed arranged around Charles before he issued a single command.
“You staged your death,” Adrian said.
“I postponed it.”
“For twelve years?”
“I had work to finish.”
Charles turned toward me.
“Clara’s daughter.”
“You threatened to kill me.”
“I threatened many people.”
“Did you kill my mother?”
His expression did not change.
“No.”
“Did Victoria?”
“No.”
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“For once, he is telling the truth.”
Charles placed his glass on the mantel.
“Clara died because she trusted the wrong man.”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
The answer struck harder than I expected.
“Tell me his name.”
“I will, after you give me the ledger.”
“I don’t have it.”
“You have the key.”
He looked at the brass key hanging from my necklace.
“Seventeen does not refer only to the cottage.”
“Then what does it open?”
“The final Ashford vault.”
Victoria rose.
“You told me the vault was empty.”
“I told you what kept you useful.”
Her face hardened.
For decades, Victoria had manipulated everyone around her. Yet Charles dismissed her with a sentence.
Daniel stepped forward.
“Which one of us is your son?”
Charles smiled.
“Both of you were raised to ask that question. Neither of you has asked whether being my son is worth proving.”
“Answer him,” Adrian said.
Charles walked between them.
“One of you was born an Ashford. The other was brought into the nursery after the fire.”
“Brought from where?” I asked.
“From Clara.”
The room went still.
“My mother had a baby?”
Charles looked at me.
“She had you.”
I could not breathe.
“That makes no sense.”
“You were not nine years old when the twins were born, Elena. You were an infant.”
My memories shifted.
I had always believed I was twenty-nine. My birth certificate listed a date five years before the nursery fire.
Charles claimed the document was false.
Clara had raised me as older than I was, altering school and medical records with help from a physician.
“Why?” I asked.
“To hide where you came from.”
“Where did I come from?”
Charles’s gaze moved to Victoria.
Victoria looked away.
A terrible idea formed.
“No.”
Charles smiled.
“You see it.”
Victoria’s voice shook.
“She is not mine.”
“Then why are you afraid to look at her?”
“I gave birth to sons.”
Charles walked closer to me.
“Clara left the nursery with three living children.”
Adrian gripped the back of a chair.
“Three?”
“Two boys and one girl.”
I touched my face, searching Victoria’s features against my own.
Pale eyes.
High cheekbones.
The same slight curve at the corner of the mouth.
Victoria approached me.
“No,” she said again. “The girl died.”
“Which girl?” Daniel asked.
Charles answered.
“Victoria’s first child.”
She slapped him.
The sound echoed through the gallery.
“You promised never to say that.”
Charles did not react.
Victoria turned toward me, her control finally breaking.
“Before the twins, I gave birth to a daughter. Charles told me she was stillborn.”
“And you believed him?”
“I saw a body.”
“You saw what he wanted you to see,” Daniel said.
Charles adjusted his coat.
“The girl lived. She was hidden because the Ashford trust recognized only a male heir at the time. Victoria’s father considered a daughter inconvenient.”
My knees weakened.
“Are you saying I’m Victoria’s daughter?”
“I am saying Clara raised the girl.”
“Why would my mother do that?”
“Because she was the only decent person in the room.”
Pierce interrupted.
“This reunion is touching, but we need the key.”
He reached for the chain around my neck.
Daniel stepped between us.
A shot rang out.
Pierce staggered backward.
Graham held the smoking gun.
Everyone turned toward him.
Graham fired again, striking one of the federal officers.
Chaos erupted.
Adrian pulled me behind the stone fireplace.
Daniel shot out the gallery lights.
Victoria screamed.
Charles disappeared through a hidden panel beside the portrait.
When the shooting stopped, Pierce was gone.
Two officers lay injured.
Graham had vanished.
And Victoria stood near the open passage, holding the brass key she had torn from my neck.
She looked at me with tears on her face.
“I don’t know whether you are my daughter,” she said.
Then she stepped into the darkness.
May you like
“But I know what Charles will do if he reaches the vault first.”
The hidden panel closed behind her.
