Chapter 4 - THE FIRST FUNERAL
Lena had attended her mother’s funeral eight years earlier.
She remembered the rain.
She remembered the closed black umbrella in her hand.
She remembered Bianca squeezing her fingers so hard that their knuckles hurt.
She remembered Richard standing beside the grave without shedding a single tear.
Their mother, Evelyn Mercer, had supposedly died from a ruptured cerebral aneurysm while traveling in Connecticut.
There had been no warning.
No prolonged illness.
No goodbye.
The family was told the damage had been catastrophic.
The casket remained closed.
At the time, Lena believed grief explained everything strange about the funeral.
Now she was no longer sure grief explained anything.
Claire sat beneath a blanket inside an ambulance outside the old winery.
Mara had already asked her the same question four times.
“Are you certain the woman you saw was Evelyn Mercer?”
Claire nodded.
“I didn’t know her name then.”
“How did you identify her?”
“Photographs.”
“When?”
“After Lena began recovering her memories.”
Claire looked at Lena.
“She kept an old photograph beside her bed.”
“One day she told me it was her mother.”
“I recognized her immediately.”
Lena felt cold.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought I was mistaken.”
“Claire.”
“You were barely functioning.”
“You had nightmares.”
“You were rebuilding your entire identity.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you your dead mother had walked through the hospital hallway unless I could prove it.”
“And can you?”
Claire reached inside the pocket of the coat police had returned to her.
She produced a tiny flash drive.
“I copied security footage before the hospital administrator erased the archive.”
Lena stared.
“You have footage?”
“One clip.”
Adrian stood several feet away.
He had not spoken since hearing Claire’s claim.
Victor sat in another ambulance under police supervision.
Thomas Crane had already been transported downtown in handcuffs.
Mara inserted Claire’s flash drive into a secure laptop.
The video opened.
December 17.
11:58 p.m.
A woman entered the hospital’s restricted corridor.
She wore a dark coat and a scarf over her hair.
Her face turned toward the camera for less than two seconds.
Lena stopped breathing.
Adrian whispered.
“My God.”
It was Evelyn Mercer.
Older than Lena remembered.
Thinner.
Gray streaks in her dark hair.
But unmistakable.
Lena moved closer to the screen.
Her mother walked toward the room where Lena lay unconscious.
A hospital administrator intercepted her.
They argued.
Then Richard appeared.
Lena’s hands began shaking.
Richard grabbed Evelyn’s arm.
She pulled away.
Even without audio, the hatred between them was obvious.
Richard pointed toward an exit.
Evelyn looked through the glass at Lena.
Then something strange happened.
She placed one hand against the window.
Her shoulders collapsed.
She was crying.
Richard stepped closer and said something.
Evelyn stared at him for several seconds.
Then she left.
The video ended.
Lena could not move.
Eight years.
Her mother had been alive for eight years.
Adrian quietly asked Mara for a few minutes.
The detective nodded and moved away with Claire.
Lena stared at the black screen.
“I buried her.”
Adrian said nothing.
“I stood beside her grave.”
“I watched them lower the coffin.”
Her voice broke.
“I talked to that grave.”
Adrian moved closer but kept enough distance that Lena did not feel cornered.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re right.”
“I don’t.”
Lena looked at him.
“Everybody lied.”
“Yes.”
“My father.”
“Yes.”
“Bianca.”
“Yes.”
“Victor.”
“Yes.”
She swallowed.
“Maybe you.”
Adrian accepted that too.
“Maybe.”
The answer surprised her.
“You’re not going to defend yourself?”
“I will when I know what I’m defending.”
Lena looked away.
For the first time since entering the wedding, she almost wanted to lean against him.
She refused.
Dependence had nearly destroyed her once.
She would not rebuild herself around another person.
Mara approached again.
“Victor is willing to talk.”
Adrian laughed without humor.
“Now?”
“He wants immunity.”
“Of course he does.”
Lena looked toward the ambulance.
“What does he know about my mother?”
“Enough to be useful.”
Victor was brought inside the winery’s former office.
His wrists were cuffed to a steel ring on the table.
He looked annoyed by the arrangement.
Mara sat across from him.
Lena and Adrian remained near the wall.
Victor looked at Lena.
“I didn’t know Evelyn was alive until three years ago.”
Lena stared.
“Where was she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Victor.”
“Richard told everyone she died.”
“I believed it too.”
“Then three years ago I saw her.”
“Where?”
“At a shareholder conference in Zurich.”
Adrian frowned.
“You never told me.”
Victor looked at his brother.
“I was working for Richard.”
The room went quiet.
Adrian’s face became unreadable.
“How long?”
“Six years.”
“You worked for Mercer behind my back?”
“Yes.”
“For money?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
Victor hesitated.
“Leverage.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“What did he have on you?”
Victor smiled sadly.
“You.”
Adrian stopped.
Victor continued.
“Richard had evidence connecting Vale Capital to the earliest Crown trials.”
Lena looked between them.
“What are the Crown trials?”
Victor leaned back.
“Experimental neurological treatments.”
“Mercer Biomedical developed the drugs.”
“Vale Capital financed the program through shell companies.”
“Patients were told they were receiving approved compassionate-care treatments.”
“They weren’t.”
“How many?”
Victor looked at Lena.
“Officially?”
“Eleven.”
“Unofficially?”
“Forty-seven.”
The number returned from Lena’s memory.
Forty-seven names in the blue file.
“How many died?”
Victor did not answer immediately.
“Twenty-nine.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
Lena stared.
Victor continued.
“Your mother discovered internal reports showing severe complications had been hidden.”
“She wanted to shut the program down.”
“Richard refused.”
“They fought.”
“Then she supposedly died.”
Lena’s stomach turned.
“You think my father killed her?”
“I think your mother believed he would.”
“Why fake her death?”
“To disappear.”
“Who helped her?”
Victor looked toward Adrian.
“Someone inside Vale.”
Adrian frowned.
“Who?”
“I never learned the name.”
Lena thought of the video.
“If my mother disappeared to save herself, why did she come to the hospital?”
Victor looked at her.
“Because she thought Richard had finally done to you what he failed to do to her.”
The words landed like stones.
Lena sat.
Victor continued.
“Evelyn had been monitoring both of you from a distance.”
“Me and Bianca?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she contact us?”
“She believed contact would put you at risk.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s also what she believed.”
Lena felt anger replacing shock.
“My mother watched us grow up from somewhere in hiding and decided silence was protection?”
Victor shrugged.
“People justify terrible choices with good intentions every day.”
Adrian looked at him.
“You would know.”
Victor did not react.
Mara opened a new page in her notebook.
“Where is Evelyn now?”
Victor looked at Lena.
“If I knew, Richard would know.”
Lena thought of something.
“The blue file.”
Victor nodded.
“Your mother created it.”
“Why was it at the lake house?”
“She hid copies in several places.”
“Richard spent years looking.”
“Bianca found one.”
Lena’s throat tightened.
“Bianca knew our mother was alive?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Lena whispered.
“She knew.”
Victor nodded.
“She confronted Richard.”
“She wanted to tell you.”
“What stopped her?”
Victor stared at the table.
“Money.”
Lena laughed once.
It hurt.
“Of course.”
“Not just money.”
“What else?”
“Control of Mercer Biomedical.”
“Richard promised Bianca the company if she helped recover Evelyn’s evidence.”
Adrian looked furious.
“And Lena?”
Victor looked at him.
“Lena controlled thirty-four percent of the voting shares through her maternal trust.”
Lena remembered.
Her mother’s father had created the trust years before.
Bianca had received a smaller cash inheritance.
Lena received voting shares because she was born first.
By seven minutes.
Bianca had hated that fact since they were teenagers.
Victor continued.
“Lena’s death transferred temporary voting authority to Richard.”
Lena felt sick.
“So my father benefited from me dying.”
“Yes.”
“And Bianca?”
“She was promised the shares after the merger.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“The Vale-Mercer merger.”
“Yes.”
“That merger was announced four months after Lena’s funeral.”
Victor gave him a long look.
“Now you understand.”
Adrian did.
Bianca marrying into the Vale family had not merely been emotional betrayal.
It had consolidated two corporate empires.
Lena’s death had cleared the largest obstacle.
Lena stood.
“I want to see Bianca.”
Mara immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“She knows where my mother is.”
“Maybe.”
“She will not talk with you rationally tonight.”
“I don’t need rational.”
Mara closed the notebook.
“You also don’t need to give her an opportunity to manipulate you.”
Lena stared at her.
The detective did not blink.
Finally, Lena sat again.
Adrian’s phone vibrated.
He checked it.
Then looked at Mara.
“Bianca left the ballroom.”
Mara stood.
“What?”
“My security chief just called.”
“She disappeared during the evacuation.”
Mara swore.
“I ordered every exit covered.”
Adrian looked at Lena.
“She knows the building.”
Lena suddenly remembered something.
“The service tunnels.”
“What tunnels?”
“The old hotel beneath the ballroom connects to the neighboring property.”
“My father used them for private entrances.”
Mara was already calling officers.
But Bianca was long gone.
Twenty-eight minutes later, police found the bridal gown abandoned in a service corridor.
The emerald necklace lay beside it.
No Bianca.
Only a white envelope.
Lena’s name was written across the front.
She opened it.
Inside was an old Polaroid photograph.
Lena and Bianca were approximately six years old.
They sat on their mother’s lap near a lake.
Evelyn smiled at the camera.
Someone had written a message on the back.
Lena recognized her mother’s handwriting.
IF ONE OF MY GIRLS FINDS THIS, GO TO THE CHAPEL.
BENEATH THE SECOND PEW.
TRUST NO ONE WHO KNOWS ABOUT THE RED DOOR.
Lena read it twice.
Adrian looked over her shoulder.
“What red door?”
Lena shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Victor’s voice came from behind them.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
Victor had gone completely pale.
Adrian stared at him.
“What is it?”
Victor swallowed.
“The entrance to the original Crown laboratory.”
Lena’s heart accelerated.
“Where?”
May you like
Victor looked directly at her.
“Under your mother’s grave.”
