Chapter 15 - The Second Baby
Three weeks after Victor’s arrest, Blackwood House reopened its front gates.
Reporters gathered along the road, but Evelyn refused every interview that focused on the inheritance.
“There was no inheritance,” she told them. “There was a responsibility.”
The Haven House restoration began first.
Former offices were converted into consultation rooms. Volunteer attorneys agreed to review suspicious property transfers. Social workers prepared the cottages for elderly residents who needed temporary housing.
Celeste moved into a small apartment away from Victor.
She met with prosecutors twice a week and surrendered the accounts held in her name. Some relatives called her a traitor. Others called her a victim.
Evelyn considered her both responsible and harmed.
Forgiveness had not arrived, but the truth had made it possible.
Martin remained in custody while negotiations continued.
Victor denied every charge.
His lawyers claimed Claire, Rose, and Nathan had created an elaborate conspiracy to seize control of Blackwood House.
The original ledger made that claim difficult to sustain.
Still, one name inside the ledger worried Mara.
Vale Strategic Recovery.
The company had received payments from Victor for fifteen years.
Its official director was a woman named Lucia Vale.
No valid photograph existed.
Claire remained under protection in a cottage on the property.
Mother and daughter spoke every day, but twenty-three missing years could not be repaired in three weeks.
Some mornings, Evelyn sat with Claire for hours.
Other mornings, she could not bear to see her.
Claire accepted both.
Rose had left Evelyn one final personal letter.
My darling Evelyn,
Saving a person does not give us the right to choose every truth they are allowed to know.
I understood that too late.
Claire was your mother in every way that mattered during your earliest years. Lena gave you life. Both women risked everything to keep you beyond Adrian’s control.
You had a sister.
I called her Lucia because Lena never told me the name she chose. After the fire, we believed the second child had died. Years later, I learned she had been taken.
I spent the rest of my life searching.
I found evidence that she survived.
I also found evidence that someone taught her to search for you.
Do not assume she wants to harm you.
Do not assume she does not.
Love,
Grandma Rose
Evelyn folded the letter and placed it beside Rose’s photograph.
The woman who had appeared at the front door during the will reading had vanished before Evelyn reached the entrance hall.
Security cameras showed only a gray coat disappearing beyond the gate.
She left no name.
Only the railway ticket.
The ticket to Bellweather remained unused.
Mara advised Evelyn not to travel.
Nathan agreed.
Claire begged her to burn it.
Evelyn kept it inside the silver bracelet box.
On the twenty-second evening after Rose’s death, the music box began playing by itself.
Evelyn was alone in the west library.
The antique had been repaired and returned to its place beside the portrait. The mechanism should not have moved without being wound.
Yet the lullaby filled the room.
Evelyn crossed to it.
The tiny dancer rotated.
Beneath the velvet lining, the empty bracelet space was no longer empty.
A second silver bracelet lay there.
L.V.
Evelyn lifted it.
It was warm.
Someone had placed it in the box moments earlier.
The library door stood open.
Footsteps moved through the corridor.
Evelyn followed.
They led to the front hall.
A woman stood inside the entrance.
She was close to Evelyn’s age. Her hair was darker, but their height, eyes, and facial structure were almost identical.
She wore the gray coat from the funeral.
In her right hand, she held the original photograph of Rose, Claire, Lena, and the two babies.
In her left hand, she held a small remote.
The security cameras had been disabled.
Evelyn stopped at the foot of the stairs.
“Lucia?”
The woman smiled.
“That is the name Rose gave the child she lost.”
“What is your real name?”
“I’ve had seven.”
“Are you my sister?”
The woman looked at the L.V. bracelet in Evelyn’s hand.
“You already know the answer.”
Claire entered from the east corridor.
When she saw the visitor, she froze.
“No,” Claire whispered.
The woman’s smile disappeared.
“You remember me.”
Claire backed toward the wall.
“I remember the baby.”
“You remember leaving me.”
“I went back for you.”
“You chose her.”
Claire shook her head.
“Lena had you.”
“Lena was already gone.”
Evelyn moved between them.
“Who took you from Haven House?”
The woman looked at the family portrait.
“The man Rose spent twenty-seven years pretending she defeated.”
“Adrian?”
“He raised me to believe Lena abandoned us and Claire stole you.”
“Is Adrian alive?”
Before the woman could answer, Evelyn’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
A woman spoke quietly.
“Do not let her inside Blackwood House.”
Evelyn looked at the visitor.
“She’s already inside.”
The caller inhaled sharply.
“Then get away from the portrait.”
The line went dead.
A faint ticking began inside the frame.
Claire moved toward Evelyn.
The gray-coated woman raised one hand.
“Don’t touch it.”
“What is inside?” Evelyn asked.
“Not what. Who.”
The hidden panel in the portrait opened.
A small screen lit up inside the frame.
A live video appeared.
An elegant woman sat in a dim room, facing the camera.
Her dark hair was streaked with silver. Around her neck hung the same circular pendant from the Haven House photograph.
Claire gripped the edge of the table.
“Lena.”
The woman on the screen smiled.
“Hello, Evelyn.”
Evelyn could not breathe.
Her biological mother was alive.
The gray-coated woman looked toward the library windows.
A black sedan had stopped beyond the gates.
Several figures stepped out.
“They followed me,” she said.
“Who?” Evelyn asked.
The woman turned the original photograph over.
A new message had been written beneath Rose’s old words.
One daughter was hidden.
The other was trained.
Evelyn looked from the message to the approaching figures.
“Trained for what?”
Her sister closed the hidden panel and placed the remote in Evelyn’s hand.
“To open the part of Blackwood House Rose never told you existed.”
A deep mechanical sound moved beneath the floor.
The shelves began to separate.
Behind them, a steel staircase descended into darkness.
From somewhere below came the sound of a telephone ringing.
Claire stared at the opening.
“That room was sealed before Evelyn was born.”
The gray-coated woman stepped onto the first stair.
“No,” she replied. “Someone has been living down there.”
The telephone stopped ringing.
A man’s voice rose from beneath the house.
Calm.
Familiar.
“Bring both daughters to me.”
Evelyn recognized the voice from Victor’s secret recordings.
Adrian Vale.
Her sister reached for Evelyn’s hand.
Outside, the figures crossed the lawn.
Inside the hidden room, a lock released.
May you like
And behind Evelyn, the woman on the portrait screen whispered one final warning.
“Do not believe the first sister who tells you she was stolen.”
