CHAPTER 5 — THREE DAYS AFTER THE FUNERAL
Senator Whitlock was taken upstairs in handcuffs.
I remained in the vault.
The ledger lay open in front of me.
My mother’s funeral had taken place on October 12.
The transfer was dated October 15.
For eighteen years, I had believed Helena Vale died instantly when her car left a mountain road and burned in the ravine below.
There had been no viewing.
My father said the fire made it impossible.
Now a financial record suggested she had been moved to a medical facility three days after we buried her.
Grant was brought into the vault under guard.
He stared at the boxes lining the room.
“My mother told me this place was a myth.”
“She also told me my mother survived.”
His eyes moved toward the ledger.
“She may have.”
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You recognized the key.”
“I saw one like it in my father’s office when I was sixteen.”
Grant sat across from me.
Without his audience, he appeared smaller.
Still dangerous.
But no longer untouchable.
“My father and yours were business partners once,” he said.
“My father hated Malcolm.”
“Later. Not at the beginning.”
I opened the file labeled with my father’s name.
Inside were old photographs of Elias meeting Malcolm Holloway at ports, private airfields, and foreign auctions.
Some were taken before my birth.
Others were taken shortly before my mother’s crash.
A signed agreement lay beneath the photographs.
The document transferred several disputed artifacts into the Vale Heritage Trust.
My father’s signature appeared at the bottom.
Grant watched my expression.
“You thought your family was clean.”
“I thought yours was guilty.”
“Both can be true.”
I wanted to strike him.
Instead, I folded my hands.
“Why did you attack me tonight?”
His eyes hardened.
“You embarrassed me.”
“That is not a reason.”
“To men like my father, it is.”
“Your father wasn’t standing beside that pillar.”
“No. But his voice has been in my head since I was a child.”
It was not an apology.
I refused to let it become one.
“You are responsible for what you did.”
“I know.”
The admission surprised both of us.
Grant looked down at his cufflinks.
“My mother sent me here to retrieve the ledger. She said you didn’t know about the vault. She wanted me to keep you distracted.”
“You assaulted me as a distraction?”
“I lost control.”
“No. You exercised it.”
He had no response.
Adrian entered with an update.
Saint Catherine’s had been abandoned for seventeen years. The property now belonged to a shell corporation controlled by Thomas Creed.
My father’s oldest attorney.
The man who had drafted my trust.
The man who had comforted me at my mother’s funeral.
My phone rang.
Father.
I answered.
“I found the ledger.”
His voice turned heavy.
“Mara…”
“Was my mother alive after the crash?”
Another silence.
“Yes.”
The word nearly broke me.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I saw her once after the accident.”
My throat tightened.
“When?”
“Three days after we buried her.”
I closed my eyes.
My father continued.
“She was alive, but she wasn’t safe. None of us were.”
“Where did she go?”
“She was transferred before I could bring her home.”
“By Thomas Creed?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you keep him beside us for eighteen years?”
“Because until tonight, I believed he was the only man still searching for her.”
A museum officer rushed into the vault.
“Ms. Vale, we recovered a hidden video file from Director Mercer’s office.”
He handed me a tablet.
The footage showed my mother inside Saint Catherine’s.
Alive.
Weak.
Terrified.
May you like
The timestamp was not eighteen years old.
It was recorded nine months ago.
