Chapter 6 - THE BODY UNDER THE LAKE
The drainage tunnel was barely wide enough for one person.
Cold water covered the floor.
Smoke poured down the stairs behind us.
Thomas pulled open the rusted grate.
“You first,” he told me.
Daniel shook his head.
“I go first.”
“You do not know the tunnel.”
“Neither does Claire.”
“I used it before you were born.”
Daniel looked at him.
“When you stole my uncle’s identity?”
Thomas’s face tightened.
“When Eleanor gave it to me.”
The fire cracked above us.
Vanessa pushed past them.
“Continue the family argument after we avoid burning alive.”
She crawled into the tunnel.
I followed.
Daniel came behind me.
Thomas entered last and pulled the grate shut.
We moved through darkness.
The water rose from our ankles to our knees.
The tunnel curved beneath the estate.
My hands scraped against stone.
Behind me, Daniel’s breathing was unsteady.
Not from exertion.
From everything he had learned.
“Talk to me,” I whispered.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You do not have to say anything.”
“I spent my entire life trying to become a man my father respected.”
“Richard is not your father.”
“That does not erase what he made me.”
“You are not what he made you.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I know you.”
He was silent.
Ahead of us, Vanessa stopped.
“There is something in the water.”
Thomas raised his flashlight.
A pale object floated near the tunnel wall.
Bone.
A human hand.
Vanessa backed into me.
“That cannot be George. Not after thirty-one years.”
“It is not,” Thomas said.
The body had not been in the water for decades.
The skin was pale but intact.
A man in a gray suit lay wedged beneath a pipe.
Daniel helped Thomas pull him free.
I recognized him.
Richard’s assistant.
The man who had whispered to Vanessa during the party.
I touched his neck.
No pulse.
There was a wound behind his ear.
“He was murdered recently,” I said.
Vanessa stared at him.
“He left the estate.”
“No,” Thomas replied. “Someone wanted you to think he did.”
Daniel searched the man’s pockets.
He found a wallet, a key card, and a folded note.
The note contained three words.
DAWN. TOWER. LILY.
Vanessa snatched it from him.
“What does Lily have to do with this?”
Thomas looked toward her.
“Is your daughter still at the estate?”
“She left with my husband.”
“Are you certain?”
Vanessa pulled out her phone.
No signal.
Her confidence broke.
She turned toward the tunnel exit.
“We need to move.”
The water rose to our waists.
At the far end, the tunnel opened into a circular chamber beneath the lake.
A ladder led upward.
Beneath it stood an old metal coffin.
The lid had rusted through in places.
Daniel stopped.
“The real George?”
Thomas nodded.
“You said Eleanor gave you his identity.”
“She needed someone inside the family who Richard did not control.”
“Why you?”
“Because I knew what happened to Evelyn.”
“And you agreed to become another man?”
“I had no family. No career. No protection. Richard arranged for me to be blamed for falsifying your mother’s emergency report.”
“You did falsify it.”
“I wrote that she died at the scene.”
“She didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because she asked me to.”
Daniel stared at him.
Thomas continued.
“Evelyn knew Richard would search the hospitals. She believed that if everyone thought she died at the bridge, she could disappear long enough to expose him.”
My heart stopped.
“What are you saying?”
Thomas looked at me.
“She survived the crash.”
“For how long?”
He did not answer immediately.
“Three years.”
The chamber seemed to tilt.
“My aunt was alive for three years?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Eleanor hid her.”
“Why didn’t she contact us?”
“She was injured. Frightened. And protecting a child.”
Daniel touched the birth certificate in his pocket.
“Me.”
“Yes.”
I thought of my mother grieving beside an empty chair.
Of the framed photograph in our hallway.
Of every anniversary when she placed flowers at the cemetery.
“You let our family believe she was dead.”
“She believed it was the only way to keep you safe.”
“Me?”
Thomas nodded.
“You were nine years old. You had seen Richard arguing with Evelyn two days before the crash.”
I remembered a man in a dark coat outside Aunt Evelyn’s apartment.
I remembered shouting.
I remembered my aunt kneeling in front of me and telling me never to open the door for anyone wearing a gold lion ring.
Richard wore a gold lion ring.
“I saw him,” I whispered.
Thomas’s eyes sharpened.
“What do you remember?”
“Not enough.”
“You may remember more than you think.”
Vanessa climbed the ladder and pushed against the hatch above us.
It did not move.
“Locked.”
Thomas joined her.
Together, they forced it open.
Moonlight poured into the chamber.
We emerged near the northern edge of the lake.
The estate stood behind us.
Smoke rose from one wing, but no alarms sounded outside.
Richard was keeping the fire quiet.
Vanessa finally regained a phone signal.
She called her husband.
No answer.
She called again.
Voicemail.
Then she opened the location tracker linked to Lily’s phone.
Her face went white.
“She is at Whitmore Tower.”
Daniel looked at the time.
1:17 a.m.
“What would a child be doing there?”
Vanessa’s voice shook.
“She would not go willingly.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Richard’s voice came through.
“Claire.”
“Where is Lily?”
Vanessa reached for the phone.
I raised a hand.
Richard continued.
“My niece is safe.”
“You killed your assistant.”
“He became unreliable.”
“You set the archive on fire.”
“It was never meant to survive Eleanor.”
“What do you want?”
“The trust amendment and the Bennett file.”
“In exchange for Lily?”
“In exchange for all three children.”
My blood turned cold.
“What three children?”
Richard paused.
Then I heard Sophie crying.
“Mom?”
I stopped breathing.
Daniel grabbed the phone.
“Sophie!”
Richard laughed softly.
“Good. Daniel is with you.”
“Touch her and I will kill you,” Daniel said.
The words were calm.
That made them more frightening.
“Your emotions have always been your greatest weakness,” Richard replied.
“Where is my daughter?”
“With Lily.”
“And the third child?”
A second voice came through the phone.
A boy.
“Dad?”
Vanessa covered her mouth.
Her son, Ethan, was fourteen.
She had told us he was away at boarding school.
Richard had all three children.
“Whitmore Tower,” Richard said. “Before dawn.”
The call ended.
Vanessa stared at the dark screen.
“I helped him.”
No one answered.
“I gave him access to the hospital system. I gave him Eleanor’s private schedule. I believed he wanted to stop her from destroying the company.”
Thomas looked at her.
“You believed you would inherit it.”
“Yes.”
The honesty sounded like self-hatred.
Daniel walked toward the estate parking road.
“We need a car.”
Thomas blocked him.
“Richard expects us to go directly to the tower.”
“Our daughter is there.”
“That is why we need to understand the ledger first.”
“I do not care about the ledger.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
Thomas looked toward the old estate rising behind us.
“Because Eleanor said you saw it every day of your childhood.”
Daniel’s eyes moved toward the highest window.
His old bedroom was there.
Then his expression changed.
“The family tree.”
“What?” I asked.
“There was a framed family tree in my room. Grandmother gave it to me when I was six.”
Thomas nodded slowly.
“Where is it now?”
“At Whitmore Tower.”
Vanessa wiped water from her face.
“Richard moved the family archives there last year.”
Daniel looked toward the city lights beyond the estate.
“The ledger is hidden inside the family tree.”
Thomas nodded.
“And Richard has been searching for it since Eleanor changed the trust.”
We reached the road.
A black vehicle approached without headlights.
Daniel raised the stolen gun.
The car stopped.
My mother stepped out.
Sophie was not with her.
Blood stained the sleeve of her coat.
She looked at me.
“Richard took Sophie.”
“I know.”
Her eyes moved toward Thomas.
Then the color left her face.
“You.”
Thomas froze.
My mother crossed the road and slapped him.
The sound echoed across the lake.
“You told us Evelyn was dead.”
Thomas lowered his head.
“I know.”
“You stood at her funeral.”
“I know.”
“You let me bury an empty coffin.”
“I know.”
My mother struck him again.
“Where is my sister?”
Thomas looked at Eleanor’s hidden archive burning beneath the estate.
“I don’t know.”
My mother stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
“She disappeared in 2000.”
“You said she lived three years after the crash.”
“She did.”
“Then what happened?”
Thomas’s voice dropped.
“The night she disappeared, she left one message.”
“What message?”
May you like
He looked at Daniel.
“She said Richard had found out his son was still alive.”
