CHAPTER 6 — THE WOMAN IN ROOM 17
The video lasted forty-two seconds.
My mother sat beside a narrow window wearing a gray sweater. Her once-dark hair had turned silver.
A scar crossed her left temple.
She looked older.
But it was her.
I knew the way she held her hands.
I remembered those fingers fastening pearl buttons on my coat when I was a child.
A man stood outside the frame.
“State your name,” he ordered.
“Helena Vale.”
“Do you understand why you are here?”
Her eyes lifted toward the camera.
“Because Celeste is afraid of what I remember.”
The recording ended.
Grant stared at the frozen image.
“My mother knew.”
“She imprisoned her.”
“I don’t know that.”
“You were sent to steal the ledger.”
“I was told it contained financial records.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
“No.”
Grant leaned forward.
“But I can tell you where that room is.”
Adrian stepped closer.
Grant continued.
“My mother owns a rehabilitation estate in Virginia through a holding company. She called it Briar House. There was a locked medical wing. Room 17 was always off-limits.”
“Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“Because I didn’t know Helena Vale was inside.”
“You knew someone was.”
Grant looked away.
“When I was fifteen, I heard a woman screaming my mother’s name.”
My anger rose again.
“And you did nothing.”
“I was fifteen.”
“You are thirty-six now.”
His expression tightened.
“I became exactly what they raised me to become.”
“That explains you. It does not excuse you.”
Outside the museum, media vans filled the street. The lockdown had become national news.
Adrian received confirmation that warrants were being prepared for Briar House, Saint Catherine’s records, and several Holloway financial entities.
“We can leave once the police finish processing the scene,” he said.
Grant shook his head.
“You don’t have time.”
“Why?”
“My mother will know the archive was opened.”
“She already knows.”
“She’ll move Helena.”
A loud argument erupted near the vault entrance.
My father appeared with two attorneys and a police escort.
For one second, neither of us spoke.
Then I crossed the room and struck him across the face.
The sound echoed from the concrete walls.
He did not defend himself.
“You buried her while she was alive.”
His eyes filled with something I had never seen in him before.
Shame.
“I was shown a body after the transfer.”
“Whose body?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you never told me?”
“I thought Helena was dead.”
“You saw her alive after the funeral.”
“She begged me to keep you away.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because Celeste threatened to kill you.”
My father opened the compromised file.
Beneath his old agreements with Malcolm was a handwritten letter.
My mother’s handwriting.
Elias, if they discover Mara knows anything, they will use her against us. Let her believe I am gone until the network is exposed.
The page trembled in my hands.
A police captain entered the vault.
“The judge approved the Briar House warrant.”
Adrian looked at his phone.
His face changed.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward me.
A private aircraft registered to Celeste Holloway had departed Virginia twelve minutes earlier.
Passenger records listed two people.
May you like
Celeste Holloway.
And Helena Vale.
