Chapter 3 - Learning to Pretend)
Maren spent the next month learning how to survive inside a house where everyone thought she was helpless.
Reed controlled transportation.
Celeste controlled the household.
The mansion's security system recorded every exterior door.
Maren's phone was on the Vale family account.
Even her physical therapist, Dr. Lena Ortiz, had been selected by Reed.
So Maren did the only thing left.
She became agreeable.
She stopped asking about Harrison.
She stopped complaining about the accident.
She allowed Reed to help her dress.
She thanked Celeste for arranging meals.
She laughed at dinner.
At night, she cried silently in the shower where the water covered the sound.
Then Lena changed everything.
During one session, Lena watched Maren complete a supported standing exercise.
"Again."
Maren pushed upward.
Her legs shook.
She held.
"Eight seconds," Lena said.
Maren lowered herself.
"Is that good?"
Lena stared at her medical chart.
"It's better than good."
Reed had repeatedly told Maren that her recovery had plateaued.
Lena said the opposite.
"Your nerve response is improving faster than expected."
Maren looked toward the closed therapy room door.
"Does Reed know?"
"I send him weekly reports."
"What do the reports say?"
Lena hesitated.
"That you're progressing."
"How much?"
"Maren..."
"Please."
Lena lowered her voice.
"With intensive therapy, I think you could walk independently."
Maren's throat tightened.
"When?"
"Possibly within months."
Reed had told her the previous evening that she needed to start emotionally accepting permanent wheelchair use.
Maren whispered, "Don't tell him anything else."
Lena stared.
"What?"
"From today on, the reports say I'm stable. Minimal improvement."
"Why?"
Maren looked at the door.
"Because I think my husband doesn't want me to get better."
Lena did not laugh.
That was when Maren trusted her.
Over the next three weeks, Lena became the first person Maren told everything.
The photograph.
Harrison.
The locker.
The crash.
The conversation between Reed and Celeste.
Lena listened.
Then asked one question.
"Who was your adoption attorney?"
Maren remembered the name from old records.
"Samuel Pike."
Lena searched.
Samuel Pike had died twelve years earlier.
But his law firm still existed.
Maren needed someone outside Vale influence to investigate.
Lena suggested her older brother, Marcus Ortiz, a corporate forensic attorney who specialized in hidden ownership structures and financial fraud.
They could not contact him from Maren's phone.
So Lena brought a cheap prepaid phone concealed inside a resistance band case.
Marcus called that evening.
"Maren?"
"Yes."
"My sister says you have a potentially dangerous family problem."
"That's a polite description."
"Start from the beginning."
She did.
Marcus was silent for several seconds after hearing the name Evelyn Mercer.
"I know that name."
Maren's pulse quickened.
"How?"
"Mercer Foundation."
"What is that?"
"You seriously don't know?"
"No."
"The Mercer family had one of the largest private industrial holdings in New England in the late eighties. Shipping, chemicals, infrastructure. Then there was a massive fraud scandal. Assets disappeared. Lawsuits followed. Most of the family fortune was supposedly lost."
Maren remembered Harrison's words.
The money that built everything.
"Who survived?"
"I'll check."
Three days later, Marcus called back.
"Evelyn Mercer is alive."
Maren closed her eyes.
"Where?"
"That's where it gets strange."
"Why?"
"Because Evelyn Mercer didn't disappear."
"The newspaper said she did."
"Publicly, yes. But seventeen years ago, she resurfaced under her full married name. Evelyn Mercer Shaw."
"And?"
"She built a security and risk management firm from almost nothing."
Maren felt a strange pressure in her chest.
"What firm?"
"Blackthorne Strategic."
Maren knew the company.
Everyone in Reed's world did.
Blackthorne protected embassies, corporate executives, witnesses and high profile families.
"She's wealthy?"
Marcus almost laughed.
"Very."
"Can you contact her?"
"I already tried."
Maren sat forward.
"What happened?"
"Her office refused to connect me."
"Did you say my name?"
"Yes."
"And?"
A pause.
"The assistant stopped talking for about five seconds."
Maren's hand tightened around the phone.
"Then what?"
"She transferred me to internal security."
Maren's heart pounded.
"What did they say?"
"They asked me how I knew you."
The following afternoon, a flower arrangement arrived for Celeste.
White orchids.
Celeste loved orchids.
The housekeeper placed them in the foyer.
Maren barely noticed until she saw the card lying beneath the vase.
It was addressed to nobody.
There was only one handwritten sentence.
Maren Elise is alive.
Maren's blood turned cold.
Celeste entered the foyer.
She picked up the card.
The color disappeared from her face.
Reed walked in behind her.
"What is it?"
Celeste crushed the card in her hand.
For the first time, Maren realized something vital.
May you like
They were not only hiding Evelyn from her.
They were terrified Evelyn might find her.
