Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Looked Like Clara)
Her name was Helen Royce.
Police identified the woman in the coffin before midnight.
Sixty-one years old.
Former theatrical makeup artist.
No close family.
Declared missing nine days earlier.
Alex stared at her driver’s license photograph on Monroe’s tablet.
Without the wig and prosthetics, Helen looked nothing like Clara.
Someone had transformed a missing woman into his wife.
But why?
Dr. Shaw found sedatives in Helen’s system and evidence that she had died less than twenty-four hours before the funeral.
That meant Helen had still been alive after Clara supposedly died.
The false funeral had been planned before they had a body.
Alex sat in the library while investigators moved through his house.
Lily slept upstairs under police protection.
Arthur remained awake.
Teresa and Derek had been taken separately for questioning.
Beatrice had agreed to cooperate.
Monroe entered carrying coffee.
“Your brother is talking.”
Alex looked up.
“What did he say?”
“He admits Richard paid his gambling debts.”
“How much?”
“Nearly four hundred thousand.”
Alex closed his eyes.
Derek had always been irresponsible.
But four hundred thousand was not a mistake.
“What did Richard want?”
“Access.”
“To my house?”
“To Clara.”
Alex’s eyes opened.
Monroe sat opposite him.
“Derek claims Richard believed Clara possessed corporate records tied to a shell company called Bluebird Holdings.”
Blue bird.
Lily’s phrase.
“What records?”
“He says he doesn’t know.”
“He’s lying.”
“Probably.”
Alex leaned back.
“What does my mother say?”
“Almost nothing.”
“Of course.”
“She denies knowing Helen Royce.”
“Lily saw Helen alive at the Bluebird building.”
“We’re checking properties connected to Bluebird Holdings.”
Arthur made a sound from the doorway.
A nurse had wheeled him in.
His eyes were locked on Alex.
Alex moved beside him.
“Dad, do you know Bluebird?”
Arthur nodded.
“Can you write?”
Arthur’s right hand had limited movement, but Monroe placed a thick marker between his fingers and held a notepad beneath it.
Arthur struggled for almost a minute.
The letters were barely recognizable.
V O S S
Then below it:
1 9 9 8
Alex stared.
“What happened in 1998?”
Arthur’s breathing accelerated.
He wrote again.
C L A R A
Alex frowned.
“I didn’t meet Clara until 2012.”
Arthur shook his head violently.
He wrote:
F A T H E R
“Clara’s father?”
Arthur nodded.
Clara rarely spoke about her biological father.
Her mother had told her he died when she was young.
Alex remembered a name.
“Daniel Hart?”
Arthur’s eyes widened.
He nodded.
Monroe searched her phone.
“Daniel Hart, accountant, reported dead in a boating accident in 1999.”
Arthur struck the paper.
He wrote:
N O
Not an accident.
Alex felt the room shrinking.
“What did he know?”
Arthur’s hand shook too badly.
He dropped the marker.
Then whispered a word.
“M… money.”
Monroe leaned closer.
“Money?”
Arthur nodded.
“Voss Meridian existed then?”
“It was founded in 1996,” Alex said.
Richard’s father had started it.
Richard took control after his father’s death.
Arthur forced another word.
“Ter… esa.”
Alex stared at his father.
“You knew Mom knew Clara’s father?”
Arthur nodded.
The past shifted beneath Alex’s feet.
His marriage to Clara suddenly did not look random.
His mother had introduced them.
A charity dinner.
Teresa had insisted he attend.
Clara had been seated beside him.
At the time, Alex called it fate.
Now it looked like placement.
“Did Mom arrange for me to meet Clara?”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Then nodded.
Alex stood.
He could not breathe.
Everything precious in his life had begun at that dinner.
Clara.
Lily.
His home.
If Teresa had manipulated the first meeting, what else had she manipulated?
Monroe’s phone rang.
She listened for thirty seconds.
Then looked at Alex.
“They found the Bluebird property.”
“Where?”
“Forty minutes north.”
“What is it?”
“An abandoned private medical facility.”
Alex rose.
“I’m going.”
“You’re not.”
“My wife may be there.”
“We don’t know that.”
“My daughter saw a woman who looked like Clara there.”
“Which is exactly why you’re staying here while a tactical unit clears it.”
Alex moved closer.
“You can arrest me or I’m getting in my car.”
Monroe studied him.
Then sighed.
“You ride with me. You stay behind the line.”
They arrived at Bluebird just after 2:00 a.m.
The building sat behind rusted iron gates.
No lights.
Three stories.
Brick walls covered in ivy.
Police entered first.
Alex waited beside Monroe’s vehicle, fists clenched.
Ten minutes.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
Then Monroe’s radio crackled.
A voice said:
“We have a live female.”
Alex stopped breathing.
Another voice followed.
“Repeat. One live female. Basement level.”
Monroe grabbed Alex before he ran.
“Wait!”
“Is it Clara?”
The radio crackled again.
“Female approximately mid-thirties. Dark hair.”
Alex tore free.
Then a paramedic appeared at the front door.
Behind him, officers carried a stretcher.
The woman’s face was covered by an oxygen mask.
Alex saw dark hair.
A familiar hand.
The smallest finger crooked.
May you like
“CLARA!”
Her eyes opened.
