Chapter 10 - THE PLANE THAT RETURNED EMPTY
Mara advised Seraphina not to go.
Marcus agreed.
The police were still searching for Grant, and the airfield could be a trap.
Seraphina sent the address to the lead investigator but did not wait for a response.
“If Grant has information about my father, I need to hear it.”
“You need to stay alive,” Mara said.
“Then come with me.”
Theo remained at the mansion with security.
Before Seraphina left, he handed her the wooden train.
“For luck.”
She kissed his forehead.
The airfield was hidden beyond a line of abandoned warehouses.
A single private jet waited near the runway.
Its engines were off.
No vehicles were visible.
Seraphina, Mara, and two private security officers approached carefully.
The cabin door stood open.
Inside, the lights were on.
Grant was not there.
A red folder rested on the first passenger seat.
Seraphina opened it.
The folder contained photographs of Edmund taken during the final months of his life.
In several images, he was entering a medical research facility owned by Northstar Biomedical.
Another photograph showed Victor Hale speaking with Edmund’s doctor.
Mara examined the dates.
“These were taken before your father received his diagnosis.”
A video tablet activated on the table.
Grant appeared on the screen.
He looked exhausted. There was a bruise near his temple, but no serious visible injury.
“Seraphina, by the time you watch this, I will either be outside the country or dead.”
Mara immediately called the police.
The video continued.
“I lied to you about almost everything. I lied about my company, the loans, Delaney, and why I married you.”
Seraphina watched without moving.
“But I did not cause Edmund’s illness.”
Grant looked away from the camera.
“Northstar approached me eight years ago. They paid Vale Meridian’s debts and gave me access to people who could help the company grow. In return, I provided information about Bellamy Holdings.”
He swallowed.
“They ordered me to meet you. They believed Edmund would reveal the protected trust if his daughter became involved with someone he did not trust.”
Seraphina remembered her father’s warnings.
Grant continued.
“I was supposed to make you dependent on me, gain temporary voting authority, and locate the original agreements.”
His voice became quieter.
“Then I fell in love with you.”
Mara looked toward Seraphina, but she did not react.
“I know you will never believe that. Perhaps you shouldn’t. Whatever I felt was not enough to stop me from hurting you.”
Grant leaned closer to the camera.
“When Edmund became ill, Northstar told me it was natural. Victor said the timing was useful, nothing more. I believed him because I wanted the company.”
He held up a medical report.
“Three weeks ago, I found payments from Northstar Biomedical to one of Edmund’s specialists.”
Seraphina’s breathing changed.
“The payments do not prove they caused his illness,” Grant said. “But they prove they were monitoring him before the diagnosis.”
The video briefly distorted.
“I planned the sale because Northstar threatened Theo.”
Seraphina gripped the edge of the table.
“They said if I failed, they would activate the alternate succession clause and place the company under someone else’s control. I thought completing the sale was the only way to protect him.”
Mara shook her head.
“He is still manipulating you.”
Seraphina knew that was possible.
Grant had always mixed truth with whatever lie he needed.
On the screen, Grant placed a document in front of the camera.
“The alternate beneficiary is not Adrian, Evelyn, or Delaney.”
The name had been covered with black ink.
“I never saw the complete file. Victor kept the identity hidden. But I heard Edmund call her Margaret.”
Seraphina’s mother had been named Margaret.
She died when Seraphina was nine.
“The woman in the portrait is not Evelyn,” Grant continued. “It is your mother.”
Seraphina stared at the screen.
The portrait’s face had been unclear in the old video, but the posture, the dark hair, and the red gown could have belonged to Margaret Bellamy.
“Your father did not preserve the red gown because it was beautiful. He preserved it because Margaret wore it when she signed the agreement that created Northstar.”
The video ended.
A printer at the rear of the cabin activated.
One sheet of paper emerged.
It was a passenger manifest for a flight that had arrived at the airfield four hours earlier.
The passenger list contained one name.
Margaret Bellamy.
Mara read it twice.
“This cannot be real.”
“My mother is dead.”
“Then someone is using her identity.”
The pilot’s compartment was empty.
No luggage remained on board.
Security footage from the airfield had been erased.
The police arrived minutes later and searched the plane.
Grant was not found.
Neither was the passenger.
At nine that morning, investigators arrested Victor Hale on charges related to fraud, conspiracy, evidence destruction, and unlawful financial transfers.
Grant remained missing.
The court approved Seraphina’s petition for full temporary custody of Theo and extended the protective order indefinitely.
Within one week, Bellamy Holdings recovered forty-six million dollars from frozen Northstar accounts. Seraphina announced an independent audit, restored the employees Grant had dismissed, and appointed Mara as outside legal counsel.
Delaney resigned from corporate communications and entered a formal cooperation agreement with federal investigators.
She also transferred every file she possessed to Seraphina.
The main conspiracy had failed.
The company was safe.
Theo was safe.
Grant had lost the power he spent years stealing.
Seraphina had reclaimed her father’s office, her family home, and her rightful position.
Yet one question followed her through every board meeting and every quiet night at the mansion.
Who had used Margaret Bellamy’s name?
One month after the gala, Seraphina hosted her first foundation event as chairwoman.
She wore the red gown again.
Not because it belonged to the woman in the portrait.
Because it belonged to her.
At the end of the evening, Theo found her standing alone at the top of the grand staircase.
“You look like the picture,” he said.
Seraphina smiled.
“Do I?”
“Almost.”
“What is different?”
“The lady in the picture had a necklace.”
“The Bellamy pendant?”
Theo shook his head.
“A key.”
Seraphina knelt beside him.
“What kind of key?”
“The gold one Grandpa gave Grandma.”
“How do you know Grandpa gave her a key?”
Theo reached into his pocket.
“Because the lady downstairs told me.”
Seraphina stood immediately.
“What lady?”
“The one who looks like you.”
The ballroom below was nearly empty.
Staff members cleared tables while musicians packed their instruments.
Near the main entrance stood a woman in a white coat.
Her dark hair was streaked with silver.
She faced away from the staircase.
Seraphina began descending.
“Wait.”
The woman stopped.
Slowly, she turned.
Seraphina forgot how to breathe.
The face was older than the one she remembered, but the eyes were the same.
The woman Seraphina had buried more than twenty years earlier looked up at her.
“Hello, Sera.”
Seraphina gripped the railing.
Her mother reached into her coat and removed a small golden key.
“Your father told you Northstar was searching for the first agreement.”
She looked toward Theo.
“But he never told you why I created it.”
Seraphina reached the ballroom floor.
“You are dead.”
Margaret Bellamy’s expression filled with pain.
“That was the only way to keep you alive.”
“Where is Grant?”
Margaret looked toward the dark windows.
“He found me before you did.”
“Is he alive?”
“For now.”
Seraphina took another step.
“What does Northstar want?”
Margaret placed the golden key in her daughter’s hand.
“Not the company.”
“Then what?”
A black vehicle stopped outside the ballroom entrance.
Margaret turned toward it.
“They want what your grandfather buried beneath this house.”
The front doors opened.
Adrian entered, followed by Evelyn and two investigators.
When Evelyn saw Margaret, she stopped in shock.
“You,” she whispered.
Margaret closed Seraphina’s fingers around the key.
“Do not let Evelyn take this.”
Evelyn moved toward them.
“Seraphina, step away from her.”
Margaret backed toward the open doors.
Seraphina stood between the two women.
“Someone is going to tell me the truth.”
“You are not ready for it,” Evelyn said.
“I have spent my entire life surrounded by people who decided what I was ready to know.”
She held up the golden key.
“That ends tonight.”
A sound came from inside the wall beneath the staircase.
A mechanical click.
Then another.
The marble panel behind Seraphina’s father’s portrait slowly moved outward.
Cold air entered the ballroom through the opening.
Beyond it, stone steps descended beneath the mansion.
Theo came to stand beside his mother.
From somewhere deep below them, a telephone began to ring.
Margaret’s face went pale.
“That line has been disconnected for thirty years.”
The telephone rang again.
Seraphina switched on her phone’s flashlight and moved toward the hidden staircase.
Margaret caught her arm.
“If you answer that call, Northstar will know you found the room.”
Seraphina looked into the darkness.
“Who could be calling?”
Margaret released her.
Only then did Seraphina notice the bloodless fear in her mother’s eyes.
“Your father,” Margaret whispered.
May you like
The telephone rang for the third time.
And beneath the sound, from the darkness under Bellamy House, came the slow footsteps of someone climbing toward them.
