Chapter 3 - THE FILE THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
Vivian was taken to a private hospital under police protection.
Julian refused to let the Vale family security team control the floor.
Detective Mills placed two uniformed officers outside her room.
Elena sat near the window wearing borrowed clothes from the hotel boutique.
The cream sweater and black pants fit her body.
Nothing fit the person she had become.
Twelve hours earlier, she had awakened believing Rosa Hart was her mother, Julian was about to become her husband, and Vivian Vale was simply the cruel woman determined to destroy their happiness.
Now Rosa was missing.
Vivian might be Elena’s biological mother.
A dead child named Amelia might be Elena herself.
And someone had fired a bullet into a room to prevent the truth from being spoken.
Julian stood beside Vivian’s bed.
She had regained full consciousness.
The sedative left her weak, but her mind was clear.
Detective Mills placed the threatening note inside an evidence bag.
“Tell us about the second piece of jade,” he said.
Vivian looked toward Elena.
“My father commissioned the pendant before Amelia was born.”
“The jade came from a ceremonial seal owned by my grandmother.”
“When the artisan carved the pendant, one flat piece remained.”
“Richard asked him to engrave Amelia’s birth name and date on it.”
“Why?” Elena asked.
“He said every heir should have a permanent family record.”
Vivian gave a bitter smile.
“I thought it was sentimental.”
“Richard was rarely sentimental.”
“Where did you keep it?”
“In the safe at our old estate.”
“After Richard died, I moved it to the hotel.”
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“You said it contained the name of the person Father suspected.”
Vivian nodded.
“Several months after Amelia disappeared, Richard scratched another name into the back.”
“He would not tell me why.”
“I found it after his funeral.”
“What name?” Mills asked.
Vivian looked directly at Marcus.
“Rebecca Reed.”
Marcus stood against the far wall with his attorney beside him.
The police had not arrested him.
They had no evidence connecting him to the power failure, the missing pendant, or Vivian’s disappearance.
He had refused to answer further questions without counsel.
At the mention of his sister, his expression remained unreadable.
“You believed Rebecca kidnapped Amelia?” Elena asked.
“At first.”
Vivian’s eyes filled with shame.
“The police found Rebecca’s scarf in Amelia’s bedroom.”
“They found cash in her apartment.”
“They found a train schedule marked for Montreal.”
“Everyone said she planned it.”
“Did you believe them?”
“I wanted someone to blame.”
Vivian looked toward Marcus.
“Marcus stood beside me at the funeral and swore his sister had betrayed us both.”
Marcus finally spoke.
“She was driving the car that went over the bridge.”
“That does not prove she took Amelia,” Mills said.
“She disappeared at the same time.”
“So did Thomas Hart.”
Marcus’s gaze shifted toward Elena.
Elena felt the weight of it.
“My father,” she said.
Mills opened a folder.
“A preliminary search shows Thomas Hart was employed as a chauffeur by Vale Industries.”
“He was reported missing on June fourteenth, 1997.”
“His burned vehicle was found six days later.”
“No body was recovered.”
Elena looked at Vivian.
“You knew him.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the ballroom?”
“I did not connect his name to you.”
“My last name is Hart.”
“There are thousands of Harts.”
“You investigated me for a year.”
Vivian closed her eyes.
“My investigator focused on your finances, education, employment, and relationships.”
“He did not examine your deceased foster father.”
“Foster father?”
The word cut through Elena.
Vivian opened her eyes again.
“I do not know what Rosa was to you.”
“She was my mother.”
Elena stood.
“She stayed up when I had pneumonia.”
“She worked two jobs to pay for my college application fees.”
“She sat outside every dance recital because she was afraid the jade pendant might show beneath my costume.”
“She made my wedding dress.”
“She is my mother.”
Vivian nodded slowly.
“You are right.”
“Whatever the blood test shows, Rosa raised you.”
“I will not take that from her.”
Elena wanted to remain angry.
Vivian’s refusal to defend herself made anger more difficult to hold.
Julian touched Elena’s elbow.
“The independent laboratory is sending someone.”
Elena had agreed to give a sample only after Detective Mills selected a laboratory with no known Vale connection.
Vivian had agreed immediately.
The result would take forty-eight hours.
Forty-eight hours felt impossible.
Mills placed another document on the table.
“We located a digitized summary of the original kidnapping report.”
Marcus’s attorney stepped forward.
“My client will not answer questions concerning privileged family matters.”
“This report is public evidence from a criminal case,” Mills said.
He turned toward Vivian.
“The officer who filed it was Lieutenant Owen Pierce.”
Vivian frowned.
“I remember him.”
“He led the search.”
“He retired six months after Amelia disappeared.”
Mills slid a photograph across the table.
“He bought a house in Florida with cash two weeks after retiring.”
Julian looked at the number on the property record.
“Four hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”
“In 1998,” Mills said.
“His annual salary was sixty-two thousand.”
Vivian looked toward Marcus.
“Richard said Pierce had inherited money.”
Marcus’s expression did not change.
“That was what we were told.”
“By whom?”
“Richard.”
Mills continued.
“Pierce died in 2011.”
“His personal files were donated to a historical archive last year.”
“One file is labeled Vale.”
Marcus’s attorney immediately objected.
“That material may contain privileged correspondence.”
“Police correspondence is not attorney-client privilege.”
Mills opened a scanned inventory.
“The archive lists photographs, interview notes, and one sealed audio cassette.”
Elena moved closer.
“Can we hear it?”
“The archive requires a court order because the donor restricted access.”
Julian pulled out his phone.
“I’ll have one within the hour.”
Marcus looked at him.
“You will do nothing until you understand the legal consequences.”
Julian turned.
“My bride’s mother has been kidnapped.”
“My mother was drugged.”
“Someone shot through a hotel window.”
“And you are worried about paperwork.”
“I am worried that reckless accusations will destroy this family.”
Julian stepped closer.
“This family may deserve to be destroyed.”
For the first time, Marcus looked hurt.
“You do not know what your father sacrificed for you.”
Julian’s face became still.
“What does my adoption have to do with this?”
Marcus said nothing.
Elena saw Vivian’s eyes move toward him.
There was another secret between them.
One involving Julian.
Before she could ask, a nurse entered.
“Mrs. Vale needs rest.”
Mills closed the folder.
“I will return when we have the court order.”
He looked at Marcus.
“You are not to leave the city.”
Marcus’s attorney answered for him.
“My client has no travel plans.”
Elena watched Marcus leave.
At the doorway, he paused and looked back at Julian.
The expression on his face was not anger.
It was grief.
Julian noticed it too.
“What did he mean?” he asked Vivian.
She looked down at her hands.
“Your adoption was arranged very quickly.”
“How quickly?”
“Rebecca died on June seventeenth.”
“You came to live with us on June twenty-first.”
Elena’s breath caught.
“Four days later?”
Julian stared at Vivian.
“I was five years old.”
“Yes.”
“Where was I before that?”
“With Rebecca.”
The room fell silent.
Julian’s voice changed.
“Rebecca Reed was my mother?”
Vivian began to cry.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Tears simply gathered and fell.
“Yes.”
Julian stepped back from the bed.
“You told me my birth mother died during childbirth.”
“Richard said that was kinder.”
“You let me believe it for twenty-six years.”
“I was wrong.”
“Did Marcus know?”
“Yes.”
Julian turned toward the door.
Elena caught his arm.
“Julian.”
He looked at her.
His eyes were full of something deeper than betrayal.
His biological mother had been accused of stealing the child who might now be his bride.
The same family had buried both of their identities.
“Why did you adopt him?” Elena asked Vivian.
“Rebecca had no husband.”
“Marcus was her only family.”
“He said he could not raise a child.”
“Richard insisted we take Julian.”
“Why?”
Vivian’s gaze moved toward the window.
“He said saving Rebecca’s son was the only decent thing left to do.”
Julian pulled away from Elena.
“Left to do after what?”
Vivian did not answer.
Julian walked out.
Elena followed him into the hallway.
He stopped near the nurses’ station and pressed both hands against the wall.
“My whole life is a replacement story.”
“No.”
Elena stood beside him.
“They lost a daughter.”
“Then they brought me home four days after my mother died.”
“That does not mean you replaced anyone.”
“It means Richard wanted something under his control.”
Elena looked through the hospital room window.
Vivian appeared suddenly older.
“What if Rebecca did not kidnap me?”
Julian turned.
“What if she tried to save you?”
The same possibility had already entered his mind.
It showed in his face.
“Then someone killed my mother for helping you.”
A police officer approached.
“Detective Mills asked me to give you this.”
He handed Julian a copied document.
It had been recovered from the hospital archives linked to Rebecca Reed’s autopsy.
The report contained only one page.
The cause of death was listed as blunt-force trauma caused by the automobile accident.
At the bottom was a notation added by hand.
Victim showed evidence of recent childbirth.
Julian read the line twice.
“That makes no sense.”
“You were five,” Elena said.
“She could not have recently given birth to you.”
Julian turned the page over.
A second note had been written on the back.
Infant transferred before examination.
No infant had ever appeared in the official case file.
Vivian’s monitor began alarming inside the room.
Elena and Julian rushed back.
Vivian was sitting upright, staring at the report.
“Where did you find that?” she demanded.
Julian handed it to her.
“What infant?”
Vivian’s face filled with horror.
“Rebecca was not pregnant.”
“How would you know?”
“I saw her every day.”
Vivian looked toward the handwritten notation.
Then she whispered a name.
“Celeste.”
Elena stepped closer.
“What does your sister have to do with a missing infant?”
Vivian looked at the closed door.
“Celeste gave birth three weeks before Amelia disappeared.”
Julian frowned.
“I’ve never heard that she had a child.”
“No one has.”
Vivian gripped the report.
“She was told the baby died.”
A nurse entered carrying a sealed package addressed to Elena.
There was no return name.
Inside was the missing jade pendant.
Blood marked the chain.
Beneath it lay a recent photograph of Rosa tied to a chair.
On the back, someone had written a time and an address.
MIDNIGHT.
May you like
THE OLD VALE ESTATE.
COME ALONE, AMELIA.
