Chapter 8 - The Secret His Father Left
The bullet struck the chandelier chain.
Crystal shattered across the foyer.
People screamed and dropped to the floor.
When emergency lights flickered on, Vanessa was gone.
The front doors stood open.
Outside, tires screeched against wet pavement.
Adrian rose slowly from behind a stone column.
His eyes found Eleanor.
“You said she had documents.”
Eleanor held up the travel bag.
“Some of them.”
“Then show me.”
Firefighters contained the blaze before it spread beyond the east wing. Investigators soon discovered that an accelerant had been poured through the ventilation access points.
The fire had been deliberate.
The false police officer escaped.
Nathan captured Brennan near the rear gate, but Brennan refused to answer questions without an attorney.
By three in the morning, Adrian sat in the mansion’s library beside Eleanor, Rosa, Lily, Nathan, and two detectives.
Eleanor still wore the disguise.
Adrian seemed too exhausted to question it.
The documents from the blue room covered the table.
The forged transfers.
The casino debts.
The auction records.
The photograph of Vanessa, Brennan, and Victor Sloane.
Adrian stared at the image.
“My father told me Sloane was dead.”
“So did the newspapers,” one detective said.
“Where is Vanessa?”
“We’re searching.”
Adrian looked at Eleanor.
“She said my mother knew why my father died.”
Eleanor felt the old grief tighten around her ribs.
Thomas Cole had died in a car accident fifteen years earlier.
His brakes failed on a mountain road.
Police found no evidence of sabotage.
Eleanor had accepted the conclusion because the alternative would have consumed her.
Now Vanessa had spoken with the confidence of someone holding a piece of buried truth.
Adrian turned to Nathan.
“Call my mother.”
Nathan glanced toward Eleanor.
“She isn’t in Zurich,” Adrian said. “I checked.”
Eleanor’s pulse quickened.
“You checked?” Nathan asked.
“Her plane never left the country.”
Silence settled over the room.
Adrian looked at the disguised woman across from him.
Then at her hands.
His gaze stopped on the edge of the gold ring beneath her glove.
He stood.
“No.”
Eleanor said nothing.
He moved closer.
“Take off the glasses.”
“Adrian.”
His face hardened.
“Take them off.”
Slowly, Eleanor removed the glasses.
Rosa lowered her head.
Lily covered her mouth.
Adrian stared into his mother’s eyes.
“You.”
Eleanor reached for the wig.
“Don’t,” he said.
But she removed it anyway.
The silver hair came away.
Adrian stepped back.
Every emotion crossed his face at once.
Shock.
Humiliation.
Anger.
Recognition.
“You have been here all day?”
“Yes.”
“Watching me?”
“Watching Vanessa.”
“In my house.”
“I received warnings.”
“So you disguised yourself as a servant?”
“I needed the truth.”
“You could have asked me.”
“Would you have believed me?”
Adrian looked away.
That was answer enough.
But his anger remained.
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“You let me question Lily. You let the police take her.”
“I did not know the officer was false.”
“But you knew Vanessa was dangerous.”
“I suspected.”
“You always suspect everyone.”
Eleanor accepted the accusation.
It was not entirely unfair.
Adrian paced toward the fireplace.
“You have spent my entire life testing people.”
“Because people with money are often loved for reasons that disappear when the money does.”
“And did you ever consider that your tests make trust impossible?”
Eleanor felt the words.
The detectives quietly left the library to continue their work.
Rosa guided Lily out.
Nathan followed.
Soon mother and son were alone.
Adrian placed both hands on the table.
“Was Father involved with Victor Sloane?”
“Yes.”
“How deeply?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“He invested in one of Sloane’s early companies. When he tried to withdraw, Sloane threatened him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were twenty-one. Your father was dead. You were already blaming yourself because you argued with him the night before the accident.”
“I had a right to know.”
“I wanted you to survive your grief.”
“So you decided which truth I could handle.”
“Yes.”
The honesty stunned him.
Eleanor continued.
“And perhaps I was wrong.”
Adrian stared at her.
“Vanessa knew about Father.”
“She may know more than either of us.”
“What was she looking for in the archive?”
Eleanor removed the brass key from her uniform hem.
“I intend to find out.”
Adrian looked at it.
Then his face changed.
“My father had a key like that.”
“Where?”
“He wore it on a chain beneath his shirt.”
Eleanor remembered the chain.
Police had returned Thomas’s personal effects after the accident.
His watch.
His wedding ring.
His wallet.
No key.
Adrian reached for the brass object.
Before his fingers touched it, Eleanor’s phone vibrated.
A blocked number had sent a photograph.
Vanessa stood beside a hospital bed.
In the bed lay a man with silver hair and a scar across his cheek.
Victor Sloane.
Beneath the image was a message.
Bring the archive key to the wedding venue tomorrow.
May you like
Come alone.
Or Adrian learns what his father did.
