Chapter 13 - The Woman in the White Coat)
The Reykjavik jeweler remembered the watch because its owner refused to remove it.
Through an interpreter, he told investigators that a woman in a white coat brought in an injured man with bandages across his face and left arm. The man appeared weak but alert. He gave the name Elias North and insisted the repair be completed while he waited. When the clasp was fixed, he carved a tiny sun beside the jeweler's mark using a tool from the counter.
Security footage from that week had been erased under routine policy, but the receipt carried a signature.
Thaddeus Vale.
Handwriting experts found no sign of tracing or digital duplication.
Honora sat in Thaddeus's library when Celia delivered the report. The room was bright with winter sunlight, yet she felt as though she were back beneath the burning cabin, hearing the impossible word Mom through smoke.
"He survived," she said.
"He survived at least seven days beyond the funeral," Celia replied. "We still don't know what happened afterward."
The woman in the white coat could have been Miriam or Evelyn. Victoria often wore white, perhaps in imitation of someone she feared. The jeweler remembered silver hair at the woman's collar, which suggested Miriam, but he admitted the hood obscured her face.
Honora called every number connected to Miriam Cross. All were disconnected. Letters sent to her Boston address returned unopened. Neighbors said the Cross family had moved abruptly six months earlier, leaving furniture behind.
Then a florist telephoned Westbridge.
Before leaving Boston, Miriam had arranged twelve monthly deliveries of white roses to Walter's grave. The final delivery was scheduled for the following morning. Each order had been paid in cash, but the florist still held the handwritten cards.
Honora traveled to the cemetery with Samuel and Celia. Snow softened the mountain path and covered the bullet mark on Walter's headstone. At ten, a young delivery driver arrived carrying six white roses and an envelope.
The card inside said, Nora, forgive me for keeping him from you. I did it because he asked me to.
Below the message was an address in Boston.
They drove through the night.
The address belonged to a narrow brick house in Beacon Hill. Dust filmed the windows, but a lamp burned on the second floor. Samuel circled to the alley while Celia contacted local police. Honora climbed the front steps alone and knocked.
A woman opened the door.
Miriam was smaller than Honora remembered. Time had turned her black hair silver and carved fine lines around her mouth, but her eyes were unchanged. They were the blue-gray of winter mornings in the house where the sisters grew up.
For a long moment neither spoke.
Then Miriam said, "You still wear Mother's expression when you're angry."
Honora slapped her.
The sound shocked them both.
Miriam touched her cheek. "I deserved that."
"Forty-three years," Honora said. "You let me bury you for forty-three years. Then you took my son."
"I saved your son."
Inside, the house contained packed crates and medical supplies. Maps of Iceland, Scotland, and northern Canada covered a dining table. A portable radio scanner hummed beside a stack of passports.
Miriam explained that she left home after becoming pregnant. The child's father was Walter.
Honora felt the second betrayal before the first had found a place to land.
Miriam and Walter had been together once, weeks before Honora's wedding, after an argument that nearly ended the engagement. Miriam fled when she learned she was pregnant because their father threatened to take the baby and destroy Walter. Marian Cross, a young law clerk and loyal friend, married Miriam and raised Evelyn as his own.
"Walter knew?" Honora asked.
"Not until years later. He sent money. I refused most of it."
"And Thaddeus?"
"He discovered the payments after Walter died. He found me. He met Evelyn."
Evelyn was not only Honora's niece. She was Thaddeus's half-sister.
The strange will finally made sense. Thaddeus had given his hidden sister a future claim while protecting his mother for life. He intended to reveal Evelyn after he separated from Victoria and cleaned the company accounts.
"Where is he?" Honora asked.
Miriam turned toward the maps. "After the crash, Thaddeus used an emergency beacon we arranged. Evelyn reached him first. Victoria's men were already on the ridge, so we staged the medical flight and let them believe a body had been recovered."
"You held a funeral."
"Victoria produced a burned body from somewhere. By then Thaddeus was in Iceland. He suffered a head injury, internal bleeding, and memory loss. For weeks he knew Evelyn but could not remember you."
Honora gripped the back of a chair. "And when he remembered?"
Miriam looked away.
"He wanted to return. Evelyn said it was unsafe until Victoria and Conrad were exposed. Then someone found the clinic. We moved him again. Three months ago, contact stopped."
"Three months ago? His crash was less than a month ago."
Miriam's face changed.
"No, Nora. The first crash was three months ago. The car that went over Blackwood Ridge eleven days before the funeral was staged by someone else."
May you like
She opened a locked drawer and removed a photograph dated ninety-two days earlier. Thaddeus lay bandaged in an Icelandic clinic, holding his repaired watch.
Beside him stood Victoria.
