Chapter 14 - The Confession Beside the Broken Mirror
Adrian did not run.
He sat in front of the broken mirror and told Marcus to keep the door guarded.
“I drove Evelyn to the bridge,” he said.
Nora could barely hear her own voice.
“You said you woke in the preparation room after someone attacked you.”
“I did. Evelyn found me there. She believed the person who struck me would return, so she helped me leave through the freight corridor.”
“Why did you take her to the bridge?”
“She needed to meet someone.”
“Who?”
“Daniel Vale.”
The plane crash that supposedly killed Daniel occurred six years after Evelyn disappeared. Before that, Lydia had publicly claimed he was living abroad and recovering from a breakdown.
According to Adrian, Daniel had been helping Evelyn investigate Meridian Holdings. He planned to reveal Lydia’s involvement and acknowledge Nora as his daughter.
On the night of the bridge, Evelyn intended to give him the original Celestine.
“Did he arrive?” Nora asked.
“No.”
“What happened?”
“A truck followed us from the warehouse. Evelyn told me to stop near the bridge. She took the necklace and ran toward the pedestrian path. The truck struck the side of my car.”
Claire covered her mouth.
“Whose blood was found inside?”
“Evelyn cut her arm when the window shattered. She used the blood to make it appear she had gone into the river.”
“She staged her death?”
“She believed it was the only way to protect Nora.”
Nora gripped the edge of the desk.
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know. She ordered me to drive the damaged car through the barrier after she escaped into another vehicle.”
“You helped fake the accident.”
“Yes.”
“And then you testified against her.”
“I followed the instructions she sent through Arthur.”
“Why?”
“Because Lydia needed to believe Evelyn had no allies left.”
Nora slapped the microfilm onto the desk.
“Why does this show your authorization?”
Adrian examined the mark through the Crownfire lens.
“It is not an authorization code.”
He rotated the film.
The letters changed beneath ultraviolet light.
ADRIAN COLE - FINAL AUTHORIZATION became:
ADRIAN COLE - FIND AURELIA.
“Aurelia was the gallery,” Mateo said.
Adrian shook his head.
“Aurelia was also a person.”
Arthur Vale’s younger sister, Aurelia Vale, was the original creator of the Celestine design. She disappeared from public life after the Crownfire scandal and was believed to have died overseas.
“What does she have to do with my mother?” Nora asked.
“She founded the Crownfire Society. Arthur provided the money, but Aurelia created the security methods.”
“Could she be the unidentified fourth member?”
“She would have been in her sixties at the time.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
Adrian looked at the message on the burner phone.
Ask him what he did to Evelyn on the bridge.
“Someone wants us to suspect each other,” he said.
“Someone who knows what happened.”
Mateo traced the unknown number through the hotel’s wireless network.
The message had been routed through a device still inside the building.
Marcus locked the service exits.
They divided the hidden floor into sections.
Nora and Mateo searched the nursery while Marcus and Adrian checked the mechanical rooms. Claire remained near the elevator with the birth records.
Behind the nursery mirror, Nora found a narrow passage.
It led to a surveillance room overlooking several hotel suites through one-way glass.
Monitors covered the wall.
Most were dark.
One displayed a live feed from the gallery archive.
Another showed Lydia sitting inside a police interview room.
A third showed Claire standing beside the elevator.
Someone had been watching them.
Mateo located the control terminal.
The most recent file was an audio transmission recorded minutes earlier.
A woman’s voice spoke to Lydia through an encrypted earpiece.
Let them believe Camille acted alone. Once Nora opens the locket, take the stone fragment and leave Adrian alive. He is still useful.
Lydia responded, “You promised Nora would never learn about Daniel.”
The woman laughed softly.
Daniel’s daughter was always going to learn. The only question was whether she survived the lesson.
Nora felt the blood drain from her face.
Mateo replayed the voice.
“I’ve heard her before.”
“Where?”
“At the warehouse.”
“The masked woman?”
“No. The person who called after Grant took the necklace.”
A light flashed on the control terminal.
Someone was accessing the nursery door remotely.
Nora and Mateo ran back through the passage.
The bedroom was empty.
The elevator doors stood open.
Claire was gone.
Her phone lay on the floor beside the birth certificate.
Across the nursery mirror, someone had written a message with a diamond-tipped glass cutter.
BRING THE LOCKET TO THE WINTER GALA.
BENEATH it was a date.
Tomorrow night.
May you like
And beneath the date was a name Nora had never expected to see.
EVELYN HALE.
