Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Clara crossed the library before she realized she had moved.
She stopped inches from Nathan.
“What did you just say?”
Mara stepped closer, prepared to intervene if Nathan tried to leave.
Nathan’s confidence returned in small pieces. He had finally found something Clara did not know, and he intended to use it.
“End the investigation,” he said. “Have everyone removed from my office. Then we can talk.”
“This is not your office,” Clara replied.
“Keep treating this like a victory and you’ll destroy the only chance you have to learn the truth about Evelyn.”
Clara wanted to seize his coat and force the answer from him. Instead, she pressed her hands against the edge of the desk until the anger became steady enough to control.
“When did you speak to her?”
Nathan looked at Mara again.
Mara folded her arms. “I’m staying.”
“Then there is nothing to discuss.”
Clara picked up her phone.
“I’ll tell the officers you admitted having contact with a legally deceased woman whose estate documents were later altered.”
Nathan’s face changed.
It was slight, but Mara noticed too.
“Sit down,” Clara said.
Nathan remained standing.
“Three years after Evelyn disappeared, I received an envelope at my office,” he began. “There was no return address. Inside was a photograph of Ashbourne and a note written in her handwriting.”
“What did the note say?”
“That your grandfather had hidden something beneath the west wing. She said it could destroy the trust.”
“Where is it?”
“I burned it.”
Mara gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “Convenient.”
“I thought someone was trying to manipulate me.”
“But you paid for a survey,” Clara said.
“I became curious.”
“You became afraid.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed.
Clara understood him too well now. Curiosity would not have made him hide a structural survey through a shell company. Fear would.
“Did the note contain proof she was alive?” Clara asked.
“No.”
“Did it contain something only she would know?”
Nathan hesitated.
That hesitation was the answer.
“What?” Clara demanded.
“She mentioned a night in the greenhouse before our wedding.”
Clara’s thoughts raced backward.
A week before the ceremony, Evelyn had asked Nathan to meet her privately in the greenhouse. Neither had ever explained what they discussed. Nathan returned to the mansion pale and angry. Evelyn told Clara only that she had given him a chance to be honest.
“What happened that night?” Clara asked.
Nathan looked toward the fireplace.
“Your mother offered me five million dollars to leave you.”
Mara’s eyebrows lifted.
Clara stared at him.
Nathan continued quickly. “She said she knew why I had approached you. She accused me of researching your family before we met.”
“Was she right?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Clara felt the last fragments of her former life rearranging themselves.
“You told me you didn’t know who I was at the auction.”
“I knew your name.”
“You said you had never heard of Ashbourne.”
“I didn’t understand the trust.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Nathan rubbed his jaw.
“I had been looking for investors. Victor Hale told me you were attending the auction.”
“So Victor sent you to me.”
“He introduced the possibility.”
“The possibility of what?”
Nathan said nothing.
Mara answered for him. “A wealthy woman with access to protected property and a respected family name.”
Clara’s stomach turned.
Nathan had remembered her coffee because he had studied her.
He sent books because someone had told him she loved them.
Even the gentleness had been research.
“Did you take my mother’s money?” Clara asked.
“No.”
“Because you loved me?”
Nathan looked at her, and the silence lasted too long.
“Because Victor said marriage would be worth more,” Clara whispered.
Nathan’s face became hard. “I built everything I have.”
“With my contacts, my money and my family’s name.”
“I multiplied what you gave me.”
“You stole what I didn’t give you.”
A knock came at the library door.
Elias entered holding a laptop.
“We found a hidden partition on Mr. Bennett’s office server,” he said. “There are encrypted files tied to the structural survey.”
Nathan turned toward him. “You cannot access privileged company material.”
“The warrant covers records related to the disputed loans.”
Elias placed the laptop on the desk.
One file had already been opened. It contained photographs taken beneath the west wing during the survey.
Workers had removed a section of paneled wall in the wine cellar, exposing a narrow stone corridor. At the end stood the steel door from Clara’s anonymous message.
In the final photograph, the door was open.
Beyond it was a small room filled with metal cabinets.
Clara zoomed in.
One cabinet bore her mother’s initials.
E.V.
“You told me you never found out what was there,” she said.
“I never entered.”
“Then who took these photographs?”
“The survey team.”
“And what happened to them?”
Nathan said nothing.
Elias opened another file.
It contained payment records to the four workers involved in the survey. Each received an unusually large payment two days after the photographs were taken. All had signed strict confidentiality agreements.
One of the workers, Daniel Ruiz, disappeared six weeks later.
His vehicle was found at an airport, but travel records showed he never boarded a flight.
Clara looked at Nathan.
“Where is Daniel?”
“I don’t know.”
“You paid him.”
“My company paid him.”
“Victor’s company approved the payment,” Elias corrected. “The same Victor Hale connected to the missing thirty-two million.”
Mara closed the folder.
“We need access to the underground room tonight.”
Nathan stepped between them and the door.
“No.”
Mara’s voice became cold. “That was not a request.”
“You don’t know what’s inside.”
“Neither do you, apparently.”
Clara studied his face.
He was lying about something, but his fear of the room looked real.
A crash sounded from the foyer.
Everyone turned.
Brooke shouted from somewhere beyond the library.
“Nathan!”
They rushed out.
Brooke stood beside the Christmas tree holding an open leather portfolio. Papers were scattered across the marble floor. One of the officers stood near her, while Lily waited safely with the housekeeper at the far end of the room.
Brooke lifted a photograph.
“This was in Nathan’s locked cabinet,” she said.
Nathan moved toward her.
“Put that down.”
Brooke backed away.
The photograph showed Evelyn Vale standing outside a train station.
Her hair was shorter, and she wore dark glasses, but Clara recognized her mother instantly.
A printed date appeared along the bottom.
It had been taken fourteen months after Evelyn was declared legally dead.
Clara’s legs nearly failed her.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a message.
Nathan found me first.
Brooke looked at Clara.
“There are more.”
She opened the portfolio wider.
Inside were dozens of photographs of Evelyn taken across five different countries.
May you like
Nathan had not received one mysterious letter from a missing woman.
He had been tracking Clara’s mother for years.
