Chapter 7 - The Dead Man's Invitation
The invitation response had arrived six weeks earlier.
A cream card bearing the name Thomas Vale had been returned in the mail with one box checked.
Joyfully accepts.
Meline's mother had marked the name as a prank and placed the card in a box of rejected correspondence.
Now Lena examined it under magnification.
"The handwriting is disguised."
"Could my father have sent it?" Meline asked.
"Possible. But the paper carries salt residue and diesel particulates."
"From a dock?"
"Or a warehouse. Or a boat."
Evelyn remained silent.
Meline noticed.
"You think he is alive."
"I think your grandmother never accepted his death."
"She told me he was dead."
"She told everyone."
That evening, a storm warning closed roads near Black Harbor. Meline watched weather reports from the safe apartment while Jonah traced companies linked to the old shipping network.
At 9:18, the building's front desk called.
A package had arrived.
No courier had been seen.
Inside was the engagement ring box Sydney kicked across the floor.
Meline knew she had left it in Evelyn's office.
The velvet had been cut open. Beneath the ring cushion was a tiny storage card.
Lena inserted it into an isolated computer.
A video appeared.
The footage was old, grainy, and filmed inside a warehouse. Eleanor stood near a stack of cargo crates. She was younger, perhaps forty-five. Across from her stood Thomas Vale.
Alive.
Meline leaned toward the screen.
There was no audio for the first several seconds. Then the sound cleared.
Thomas said, "If you take the company, they will come after the girls."
"What girls?" Meline whispered.
Evelyn did not answer.
Eleanor said something too soft to hear.
Thomas struck the table.
"You cannot protect both."
The video ended.
A text file opened automatically.
One line appeared.
ASK WHICH DAUGHTER WAS CHOSEN.
Meline looked at Evelyn.
"My mother and who?"
Evelyn's face had gone pale.
"Eleanor had two daughters."
Meline stood.
"No. My mother is an only child."
"That is what the family decided to say."
Meline moved away from the table.
Every revelation seemed to remove a floor beneath another floor.
"What happened to the other daughter?"
"Her name was Rebecca."
"Where is she?"
"We believed she died."
"Believed?"
"There was a fire at a coastal house owned by Thomas. Rebecca was twelve. No body was formally identified."
Meline laughed in disbelief.
"Another dead person without a body."
"Your family history contains more disappearance than death."
"Did my mother know?"
"She was sixteen. She knew Rebecca existed. She may not know the rest."
"The rest?"
Evelyn looked at the frozen image of Eleanor.
"Rebecca was not Thomas's biological daughter."
Meline waited.
"She was Victor Hale's."
The room became silent except for the storm.
Victor, the missing CFO.
Victor, whose name appeared beside Meline's grandfather on old shipping records.
Victor, who had just attacked Nora while searching for the harbor ledger.
Meline sat slowly.
"Then Sydney and I may have an aunt who survived. An aunt connected to Victor."
"And if she is alive," Lena said, "she may have a claim to portions of the estate."
Meline understood.
Her inheritance was not merely being stolen.
It might never have belonged entirely to her.
The phone rang.
A private number.
Lena nodded for Meline to answer on speaker.
Meline did.
A woman's voice spoke.
"You do not know me, but your grandmother did."
Meline's skin prickled.
"Who are you?"
"You are standing inside the trap she built."
"Rebecca?"
The woman did not confirm it.
Instead, she said, "Do not go to the wedding."
"Why?"
"Because Jason was never supposed to marry you."
Meline looked at Lena.
"Who was he supposed to marry?"
The woman's answer came softly.
May you like
"Your sister."
Then the call ended.
