Chapter 12 - Mrs. Bell’s Real Name
The gas had no smell.
Dominic noticed it only when Harper began coughing.
“Cover her face,” he shouted.
Mia pressed Harper’s nightdress against the child’s mouth.
Nathan removed his jacket and held it over the vent.
Adrian struck the glass case with a metal chair.
It did not break.
“We need the key,” he said.
“The chamber needs Mia’s authorization,” Dominic replied.
Mia approached the console.
A scanner illuminated beneath her hand.
“Do not touch it,” Nathan warned. “We do not know what it activates.”
“We know what the gas does.”
Mia placed her palm on the scanner.
A needle pierced her finger.
She recoiled.
Blood entered a narrow channel.
The console displayed:
ASHFORD LINE CONFIRMED.
The glass case opened.
Adrian seized the silver key.
The gas continued.
A second scanner illuminated.
BLACKTHORNE HEIR REQUIRED.
Adrian placed his hand on it.
ACCESS DENIED.
Nathan tried.
ACCESS DENIED.
Dominic stepped forward.
The scanner took his blood.
ACCESS DENIED.
All three men stared at the message.
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“None of us.”
Harper coughed harder.
Mia looked at her daughter.
“No.”
Dominic understood.
“Harper cannot be the heir. The registry was amended before she was born.”
“Her identity could have been added later.”
Mia pulled Harper away from the scanner.
“You are not testing her.”
“She will die if we do nothing.”
“Find another way.”
Adrian inserted the silver key into the control panel.
It turned halfway and stopped.
“Two authorizations,” he said.
Dominic searched the walls.
The iron panels carried hundreds of engraved names. One appeared brighter than the others.
Eleanor Ashford Blackthorne.
He looked at Mia.
“Eleanor was an Ashford.”
“She married into Blackthorne,” Adrian said. “The lines were separated after her daughter disappeared.”
Mia looked at Harper.
“Perhaps the same person can carry both lines.”
Nathan stared at Mrs. Bell on the screen.
“What was her first name when she came to Blackthorne?”
Dominic searched his memory.
She had always been Mrs. Bell.
Even before she married the estate groundskeeper.
Their father never used her given name.
Nathan moved toward the screen.
“She has served here since before Adrian was born.”
Adrian looked at him.
“No. She was here when I arrived, but she was young. Perhaps eighteen.”
Dominic calculated.
Mrs. Bell would have been seventeen when Julian’s hidden daughter was born.
“She could be a descendant,” he said.
Mia touched the registry page.
“The photograph of the baby named Mia Vale might not show me.”
Nathan looked at her.
“The date matches your age.”
“But the hospital tag could be false.”
Adrian coughed.
“The registry does not identify children by photograph. It identifies blood.”
On the security screen, Mrs. Bell separated from Lena’s team.
She entered the basement alone.
Dominic reached for the intercom.
“Mrs. Bell.”
The woman stopped.
She looked at the basement camera.
“You found the chamber,” she said.
The voice came through the wall speaker.
“Turn off the gas,” Dominic ordered.
“I cannot.”
“You led Mia into this.”
“I led all of you.”
Mia stepped toward the camera.
“Why?”
Mrs. Bell’s face softened.
“Because the door requires the entire broken family.”
“You put Harper in danger.”
“I tried to keep her away.”
“You locked me in the cellar.”
“I hid you when Vivienne’s men entered the tunnels. Adrian was supposed to open the hatch after they passed.”
Adrian’s expression darkened.
“You never told me.”
“You had already gone after the registry.”
Nathan shouted, “Turn off the gas.”
Mrs. Bell touched the basement wall.
A hidden panel opened.
“I cannot stop the sequence from here. One Blackthorne heir must confirm.”
“Who?” Dominic demanded.
Mrs. Bell looked directly into the camera.
“My name before marriage was Elena Blackthorne.”
Silence followed.
Adrian moved toward the console.
“You are Eleanor’s descendant.”
“Yes.”
“Then come down here.”
“I cannot.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Bell opened her coat.
A device was strapped around her waist.
Red numbers counted downward.
Nine minutes.
Vivienne’s voice came through another speaker.
“I warned Elena what would happen if she betrayed me.”
Mrs. Bell looked toward the ceiling.
“You were always afraid of the wrong heir, Vivienne.”
“Perhaps. But fear becomes efficient with practice.”
Dominic hit the intercom button.
“Elena, listen to me. Lena Ward is in the manor. She can disarm the device.”
“The police team has been diverted to the eastern wing.”
“Tell them.”
“The transmitter detonates if I leave the basement.”
Mia stared at the screen.
“Come to the hatch.”
Mrs. Bell hesitated.
“The scanner needs your blood,” Mia said. “Without it, Harper dies.”
Mrs. Bell began walking.
The countdown passed eight minutes.
Nathan searched the chamber walls.
“There must be a manual ventilation release.”
Adrian pointed toward a metal wheel near the ceiling.
Dominic climbed the console and reached for it.
The wheel was locked.
Mia held Harper, whose eyes were beginning to close.
“Stay awake, sweetheart.”
“I’m tired.”
“I know. Look at me.”
Mrs. Bell reached the concealed hatch and entered the shaft.
Her breathing echoed through the speaker.
Vivienne spoke.
“You cannot save them all, Elena.”
Mrs. Bell descended.
“I do not need to save them all.”
She entered the chamber.
The device around her waist displayed six minutes.
Dominic climbed down.
Mrs. Bell looked at Mia.
“I am sorry.”
“You can apologize after Harper is safe.”
Mrs. Bell placed her palm on the second scanner.
The needle drew blood.
For three seconds, nothing happened.
Then the console displayed:
BLACKTHORNE LINE CONFIRMED.
The key turned.
Ventilation fans roared.
The gas began clearing.
Harper inhaled deeply.
Mia held her and cried.
A steel door opened behind the console.
Beyond it was a vault filled not with documents, but rows of computer servers.
At the center stood a single screen.
It turned on automatically.
Julian Vale appeared in a recorded video.
He was older than in the photograph, his face gray and thin.
“If you are watching this,” he said, “then Vivienne has found the registry, and Dominic has learned that the woman he married was selected long before they met.”
Mia stared.
Julian continued.
“But Mia Ashford was never intended to inherit Blackthorne.”
May you like
The image distorted.
“She was intended to identify the child who would.”
