Chapter 17 - The Promise Anthony Made
Claire moved away from her father.
Anthony did not try to stop her.
“Tell us,” I said.
He looked toward the locked doors lining the hallway.
“Not here.”
Rebecca gave a bitter laugh.
“You were silent for twenty-eight years. You can speak for five minutes.”
Anthony sat in the nearest chair.
After his conviction, Patricia visited him with an offer. Samuel had arranged new records and a transfer to a private medical unit.
Patricia would make Anthony disappear.
In exchange, he would help her locate the second volume of the Continuity Ledger.
“Why agree?” Claire asked.
“Because she threatened both families.”
“You keep saying that.”
“She had photographs of Evelyn. She knew where Rebecca lived. She knew about you.”
Claire’s face tightened.
“I was a child.”
“Yes.”
“So you abandoned me to protect me?”
Anthony did not answer.
Rebecca did.
“He believed Patricia’s lie that I had agreed to the plan.”
Anthony looked at her.
“You signed the letter.”
“It was written after she locked me in this building.”
The hallway became silent.
Rebecca explained that she had survived the fire with serious injuries. Patricia moved her between private facilities under false identities. For years, Rebecca had no way to contact Claire.
“Then who sent Claire those messages?” I asked.
“Sometimes me. Usually Patricia.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Every hope she had followed had been another chain.
“What about Rose?” I asked.
Rebecca’s attention moved to my stomach.
“She is safe for now.”
“Is she my daughter?”
“No.”
“Why does the certificate say she is?”
“Because Julian Cross needed her accepted by Nathaniel’s trust.”
Anthony rose.
“Rebecca, don’t.”
She faced him.
“They have hidden enough from her.”
“Cross will kill to protect this.”
Agent Ruiz stepped forward.
“Then give us evidence.”
Rebecca entered a code into one of the hallway doors.
Inside was a child’s former bedroom.
The bed had been removed, but drawings remained taped to the walls. Houses. Mountains. A river colored silver.
On a table rested a photograph of Rose beside a man I recognized.
Julian Cross.
He held her hand while smiling toward the camera.
On the back was written:
GRANDFATHER JULIAN AND ROSE.
“Cross is not her grandfather,” Rebecca said. “He wanted her to believe he was.”
“Who are her parents?”
Rebecca took a folded birth record from beneath the table.
The mother’s name had been covered with black ink.
The father’s section was blank.
But attached to the form was a letter in Nathaniel’s handwriting.
I recognized it immediately.
Rebecca handed it to me.
Evelyn,
If you find the child before I can explain, protect her. She is innocent of the secret carried by her name.
The continuation of the Harcourt bloodline did not begin with you.
I looked at Rebecca.
“Who is Rose?”
She held my gaze.
“Nathaniel Harcourt’s granddaughter.”
Anthony turned toward her.
“That is impossible.”
Rebecca’s expression filled with fear.
“No, Anthony.”
She pointed toward the photograph.
May you like
“Julian Cross did not invent another heir.”
“He found the one Nathaniel spent his life hiding.”
