Chapter 11 - THE MAN WHO FELL
Chaos consumed the kitchen.
Guests screamed and dropped behind tables. Security officers rushed toward the corridor. Daniel pulled Emily down behind the center island.
A second gunshot struck the wall above them.
Thomas shouted from the darkness.
“Emily, stay down!”
Emergency lights cast the room in red.
Daniel took Emily’s hand.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Do not move.”
He rose slightly to look across the counter.
Richard had disappeared.
Ashley was crouched beside the pantry door, clutching the silver locket.
Martin was nowhere visible.
Daniel whispered to one of the officers, who moved toward the service passage.
A groan came from the corridor.
Then something heavy fell.
When the main power returned, Martin lay on the floor near the wine cellar entrance.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
The revolver rested several feet away.
Thomas ran to him.
“Martin.”
Martin tried to push himself up.
“Richard took the drive.”
“What drive?” Emily asked.
Martin’s eyes found her.
“The archive backup.”
Daniel knelt beside him.
“Where did he go?”
“Underground passage.”
“There is no underground passage on the current plans.”
Martin laughed weakly.
“That is why it works.”
Mrs. Greene brought towels and pressed them against his wound.
Security searched the corridor.
Ashley began moving toward the ballroom exit.
Emily saw her.
“Stop.”
Ashley froze.
Emily stood.
“Where are you going?”
“I need air.”
“You knew about the underground passage.”
“No.”
“You lived in this house as a child.”
“So did Daniel.”
Daniel looked at Ashley.
“She knows more of the old estate than I do.”
Ashley’s voice sharpened.
“I was a guest. Nothing more.”
Thomas walked toward her and tore the silver locket from her neck.
Ashley cried out.
He opened the back casing.
Inside was a miniature transmitter.
Daniel took it.
“A tracking device.”
Thomas nodded.
“Richard used copies of Laura’s locket to identify anyone connected to the original trust.”
Emily looked at Ashley.
“You wore it because he told you to.”
Ashley backed away.
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew enough to forge an affair.”
“You would never understand.”
“Try me.”
Ashley’s fear turned to anger.
“I spent my entire life being told Daniel and I would inherit everything together. Then he met you in a filthy repair shop and treated you as though you were some miracle.”
Daniel stood.
“Ashley.”
“No. She should hear this.”
Ashley’s eyes filled with tears.
“My mother trained me to become a Blackwood wife. I studied their history. I learned their business. I attended every event and tolerated every insult. Then you appeared, and Daniel abandoned the future everyone had promised me.”
“No one promised you my life,” Daniel said.
“Your father did.”
Richard’s manipulation was visible in every word, but Emily heard something else.
“Ashley, where is your mother?”
Ashley looked away.
“She died.”
“When?”
“Ten years ago.”
“How?”
“Cancer.”
Thomas’s expression changed.
“What was her name?”
Ashley hesitated.
“Marianne Laurent.”
Thomas went pale.
Daniel noticed.
“You knew her.”
Thomas spoke slowly.
“Marianne was the nurse who signed the affidavit.”
Ashley stared at him.
“No.”
“She worked at St. Matthew’s Hospital the night Laura died.”
“No.”
“She was the last person to see Laura alive.”
Ashley’s face drained of color.
Daniel held the sealed report tighter.
“Then the affidavit did not come from a Geneva archive by accident.”
Emily understood.
“Ashley’s mother sent it.”
Thomas nodded.
“Or someone sent it after her death.”
Martin stirred on the floor.
“Marianne didn’t die of cancer.”
Ashley turned toward him.
“You don’t know anything about my mother.”
Martin’s voice weakened.
“She contacted me eleven years ago. She said she had hidden proof in the mansion.”
“What proof?”
“She never told me.”
Ashley stepped closer.
“My mother died in a private clinic.”
“No,” Martin said. “She disappeared before she could meet me.”
Ashley shook her head violently.
“I saw her body.”
Martin looked at her with pity.
“So did I, when Richard told me Emily was dead.”
The truth struck Ashley.
She looked toward the hidden corridor where Richard had vanished.
For the first time, her fear was not for herself.
“My mother could be alive.”
A security officer emerged from the wine cellar.
“We found the passage.”
Daniel moved toward him.
“Where does it lead?”
“To the old chapel beyond the north woods.”
Thomas picked up the revolver.
“Then that is where Richard went.”
Emily looked at Martin.
“Why would he take the archive backup there?”
Martin struggled to breathe.
“Because the chapel contains the original Blackwood vault.”
“What is inside?”
May you like
Martin’s eyes closed for a moment.
“The evidence that could destroy every legal claim in this room.”
