Chapter 13 - The Marriage That Erased Elaine
Police searched the facility for Brandon, but he had escaped through a service tunnel.
Vanessa and Leonard were taken into custody.
Marian was transferred to a public hospital under guard.
The trust remained frozen.
Elaine sat in Thomas’s office at dawn, staring at the marriage certificate on the tablet.
“It has to be false.”
Thomas enlarged the document.
“It contains a court seal, witness signatures, and a registration number.”
“You handled Richard’s estate.”
“I never saw this.”
“Then it is forged.”
“Possibly.”
Marian lay on a couch nearby, wrapped in blankets. Her condition had improved after the sedatives were removed from her IV, but her memories came in broken pieces.
Sophie and Sarah sat on opposite sides of the room.
They looked alike, yet years of different choices had shaped them into strangers.
Thomas placed the original blood vial in a secure evidence bag.
“We must determine two things,” he said. “Whether this marriage is valid and which trust documents remain enforceable.”
Elaine looked at Marian.
“Did you marry Richard?”
Marian’s eyelids fluttered.
“No.”
“Did you ever sign a marriage document?”
“I signed many things.”
“When?”
“After Lawrence died.”
Lawrence Vale had died in 1999.
Richard and Elaine had married in 1985.
The certificate claimed Richard married Marian in 1983.
Marian shook her head.
“I did not know him then.”
Thomas nodded. “That supports forgery.”
Sarah looked toward the window.
“Brandon would need access to county archives.”
“Vanessa’s mother served on the county records board,” Thomas said.
Elaine remembered her.
Celeste Vale had been elegant, powerful, and impossible to challenge. She treated Richard as an employee even after his company became successful.
“Is Celeste alive?” Elaine asked.
Sarah turned.
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“She was the woman who called you.”
Elaine remembered the blocked number and the voice saying she should have left the envelope closed.
“I thought Celeste died.”
“She disappeared after Lawrence’s death,” Sarah said. “Leonard told everyone she drowned during a trip abroad.”
“Like Margaret died in a car accident,” Sophie said.
Thomas leaned back.
“Too many dead women seem to remain alive in this family.”
Elaine studied Sarah.
“You knew Celeste was alive.”
“She found me six years ago.”
“Did she help you search for Sophie?”
“She told me Sophie died in the fire.”
“She lied.”
“She said Richard and Margaret invented the surviving twin to steal the company.”
Sophie’s voice sharpened.
“And you believed her?”
“I believed the person who showed me documents.”
“You entered Elaine’s house and left the recording. You knew I was alive by then.”
Sarah looked down.
“I discovered the truth last month.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Because Celeste said you were working with Brandon.”
Sophie laughed in disbelief.
“Brandon tried to kill me.”
“I know that now.”
Elaine placed a hand between them.
“This family has survived by keeping each of you suspicious of the other. That ends now.”
Sarah looked toward Marian.
“You do not get to decide that.”
“No,” Elaine said. “But I get to decide whether I continue participating in the lies.”
She took Richard’s letter and tore it in half.
Everyone stared.
“Richard left clues instead of truth. He protected Brandon instead of a frightened child. He expected me to solve his crimes after his death.”
Elaine dropped the pieces into a wastebasket.
“I will not obey his instructions anymore.”
Thomas frowned. “We still need his records.”
“We will use facts, not riddles.”
She turned to Marian.
“Who is Celeste trying to protect?”
Marian closed her eyes.
“The trial patients.”
“Protect them?”
“No. Protect what was done to them.”
Maya, who had been reviewing copied patient files, placed a folder on the desk.
“Several trial subjects were children,” she said. “Some had hereditary blood disorders.”
Sophie looked at the sealed vial.
“Like mine.”
Maya nodded.
“The company may have tested treatments on members of Lawrence’s own bloodline.”
Sarah went pale.
“Celeste gave me injections when I was young.”
“What kind?” Maya asked.
“She said they were vitamins.”
Sophie touched her arm.
“I received injections too. Margaret said they prevented infections.”
Elaine felt sick.
The twins were not only heirs.
They may have been research subjects.
Thomas’s office phone rang.
He placed it on speaker.
Brandon’s voice filled the room.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
“The retinal scanner?” Elaine asked.
“The blood sample.”
“It belongs to Sophie.”
“It belongs to the company.”
Sarah leaned toward the phone.
“Where is Celeste?”
Brandon hesitated.
Then he said, “With me.”
Elaine heard a woman speaking faintly in the background.
She could not understand the words.
Brandon continued.
“Bring the sample to the old Bennett laboratory at noon. Come without police.”
“Why would we?” Thomas asked.
“Because Celeste has the original marriage register.”
“You can deliver it through an attorney.”
“No. Elaine must see the final entry herself.”
Elaine looked at the wall clock.
“What entry?”
Brandon’s voice softened.
“The one proving Richard was not the man who married Marian.”
The line disconnected.
Thomas stared at the phone.
“If Richard did not marry her, someone used his identity.”
Sophie looked at Elaine.
“Who?”
Marian sat upright suddenly.
Her face had lost all color.
“Michael.”
Elaine froze.
The name from her one night of betrayal.
The man who might have been Brandon’s biological father.
Marian’s voice shook.
“Michael was not his real name.”
“Who was he?”
May you like
Marian looked directly at Elaine.
“Lawrence Vale.”
