Chapter 12 - THE WILL THAT DID NOT EXIST
Eleanor, Marian, and Anna escaped through the secondary tunnel.
They emerged beyond the garden wall near an abandoned carriage house.
A gray van waited on the road.
Agent Reed sat behind the wheel, pale but conscious.
“You were attacked,” Marian said.
Reed touched a bandage near her temple.
“Cole found me before they did.”
“Cole works for Richard.”
“Cole works for Anna.”
Eleanor looked at Anna.
“How many people in my house belong to you?”
“Fewer than belong to them.”
“Who are they?”
Anna opened the van door.
“We can argue while moving.”
They drove to a safe apartment above an empty bookstore.
Agent Cross and Caroline arrived twenty minutes later.
Caroline rushed to Eleanor.
“I thought you had been taken.”
“I thought you had been shot.”
They held each other tightly.
Then Caroline saw Anna.
“Who is she?”
Eleanor did not know how to answer.
Anna spoke instead.
“I am Richard’s mother.”
Caroline stepped backward.
Cross looked sharply at Anna.
“You were supposed to be dead.”
“So were you, according to several people.”
“You know me?”
“I know your father.”
Cross became still.
“My father died when I was nine.”
Anna smiled without warmth.
“That story appears popular in your family.”
She spread documents across the bookstore’s old sales counter.
“The guardianship petition will be filed tomorrow morning. Once the court approves emergency control, Richard will gain access to Eleanor’s trust.”
“We can contest it,” Caroline said.
“Not before he moves the money.”
Eleanor looked at the papers.
“What does he need the money for?”
“To purchase the last surviving records from the Chesapeake program.”
“Purchase from whom?”
“Graham Pike represents a private consortium that acquired the laboratory assets after the facility closed.”
“Why would Richard want the records?”
“Because they may reveal where your daughter was taken.”
Caroline’s face emptied of emotion.
“What daughter?”
No one answered.
Caroline looked at Eleanor.
“Mother?”
Eleanor took her hands.
“The baby you lost eleven years ago may have survived.”
Caroline pulled away.
“No.”
“Anna believes the hospital records were falsified.”
“No.”
“Richard learned something after the miscarriage.”
Caroline shook her head repeatedly.
“I held her blanket.”
“You did not see her.”
“I heard her cry.”
The room went still.
Eleanor stared at her daughter.
“You never told me that.”
“They said I imagined it because of the medication.”
Caroline covered her mouth.
“I heard a baby crying, and then Richard told me to sleep.”
Anna placed a photograph on the counter.
It showed a newborn girl with a small crescent-shaped mark near her left ear.
Caroline collapsed into a chair.
“My daughter had that mark. I saw it during the ultrasound.”
“Where was this taken?” Cross asked.
“Three days after the delivery,” Anna replied.
“Where?”
“At a private home in Maryland.”
Caroline reached for the photograph.
“Who took it?”
“Thomas.”
“Richard’s father?”
“Yes.”
“Why did he take my child?”
“To protect her.”
“From whom?”
Anna looked toward Eleanor.
“From the person who arranged Richard’s marriage.”
Eleanor felt her throat tighten.
“Richard pursued Caroline for months.”
“He was introduced to her at the hospital foundation dinner.”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
Eleanor remembered.
Dr. Malcolm Whitmore.
Jonathan’s younger cousin.
Malcolm had served on the foundation board for decades. He had introduced Richard as a promising healthcare investor.
Malcolm was also the only surviving member of Jonathan’s adoptive family.
“He arranged it,” Eleanor whispered.
Anna nodded.
“Malcolm controlled the genetic program after his father died.”
“Why would he arrange Caroline’s marriage to Richard?”
“Because both bloodlines carried markers the program wanted.”
Caroline looked sick.
“Our marriage was an experiment?”
“To Malcolm, yes.”
“And Richard?”
“At first, he believed he was entering the family to recover what Jonathan stole.”
“What did Jonathan steal?”
“The program’s master index.”
Eleanor remembered her husband’s final months.
He had become secretive, frightened, and obsessed with securing certain archives. He died of a sudden heart attack before explaining why.
“Jonathan had the index,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“Hidden inside the original will.”
Eleanor frowned.
“Jonathan’s will is in my attorney’s vault.”
“That is the public will.”
“There was another?”
“He created a sealed document naming the child as heir to a protected trust.”
Caroline clutched the baby’s photograph.
“My daughter?”
“Yes.”
“If she is alive, where is she?”
“Thomas moved her before Malcolm’s people reached the house.”
“And then?”
“He disappeared again.”
“Does Richard know his father took her?”
“He knows Thomas was involved.”
“Is that why he wants Mother’s will?”
Anna nodded.
“Richard believes Eleanor inherited Jonathan’s private records.”
“I did not.”
“You inherited the house.”
Eleanor looked toward the dark windows.
“The index is hidden in Whitmore House.”
“Somewhere.”
Cross picked up the competency petition.
“Richard will search once he has legal control.”
“He is already searching,” Eleanor said.
Reed checked her phone.
“We have another problem.”
She turned the screen toward them.
A security feed showed Richard inside Eleanor’s bathroom.
He was removing the waterproof recorder from the soap dish.
“He found it,” Marian said.
Richard examined the device, then looked directly toward the hidden camera.
He smiled.
A text message appeared on Eleanor’s phone.
I know where you are.
A second message followed.
Bring me Anna and the photograph, or Caroline will never see her daughter.
Caroline grabbed the phone.
“He knows she’s alive.”
Eleanor looked at Anna.
“Does he know where?”
Anna’s silence gave the answer.
Richard did not know.
Not yet.
Then a final message arrived.
Tomorrow. Ten o’clock. You will sign the will in your bathroom.
Eleanor read it twice.
“There is no will for me to sign.”
Anna looked at the competency papers.
“Yes, there is.”
She turned the final page over.
May you like
Attached to the guardianship petition was a newly drafted testament.
It transferred everything to Richard.
