Chapter 7 - The Hallway Behind the Ballroom
I nearly turned back.
Marcus did not let me.
“Keep moving.”
“Harrison said my mother survived.”
“He may be manipulating you.”
“He looked terrified.”
“So do guilty men.”
We continued through the service corridor.
The glamorous ballroom disappeared behind us.
Here, the estate was concrete walls, utility pipes, electrical panels, and narrow fluorescent lights.
Anna walked beside me.
“You really didn’t know any of this?”
“No.”
“Your father never told you?”
“No.”
She studied me.
“Then maybe that’s why Harrison is scared.”
“Why?”
“Because secrets are easier to control when everyone knows which lie they’re protecting.”
We reached a split in the hallway.
One passage led toward the kitchen.
The other led upstairs through a private stairwell.
Marcus checked the security panel.
“Door opened ninety seconds ago.”
“By whom?”
“Credential says Richard Mercer.”
My father.
Again.
I called him.
Still no answer.
Lena touched her earpiece.
“Movement upstairs.”
We climbed.
At the top, we found a shoe.
Silver.
Anna recognized it.
“Eleanor.”
A smear of blood marked the wall nearby.
Not much.
Just enough to suggest someone had been injured.
Marcus raised a hand.
“Slow.”
We rounded the corner.
Gavin was on the floor.
He was conscious.
His expensive tuxedo jacket had been torn.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
He looked up at us in panic.
“Don’t let her leave.”
I stared at him.
“Your mother did this?”
“She hit me with a fire extinguisher.”
Anna almost laughed.
Gavin glared at her.
“She’s insane.”
“Why were you following her?”
“I wasn’t.”
Marcus crouched.
“Try again.”
Gavin hesitated.
Then he pointed toward a steel door at the end of the corridor.
“She took something from Dad’s office.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
I walked past him.
He grabbed my ankle.
Marcus immediately pulled him away.
Gavin’s voice cracked.
“You don’t understand.”
I looked down at him.
“That sentence is getting old.”
“She said if you opened the Caroline file, everything was over.”
“For who?”
He swallowed.
“For all of us.”
The steel door ahead was slightly open.
A cold draft moved through it.
Beyond was Harrison’s private records room.
Shelves lined the walls.
Most were empty.
Paper burned inside a metal waste bin.
Someone had started destroying documents.
Anna rushed toward the fire.
“No.”
She grabbed an extinguisher and smothered the flames.
I searched the desks.
Folders had been ripped open.
Drawers emptied.
Then I saw a framed photograph lying facedown.
I lifted it.
My mother stared back at me.
She stood beside Eleanor Crowe.
Both women were young.
Both were smiling.
On the back, someone had written a date.
May 14, 2008.
Six months after my mother supposedly died.
My knees weakened.
Anna caught my arm.
I read the words beneath the date.
Caroline and Ellie.
Safe for now.
My mother had not died in that crash.
May you like
She had lived for at least six more months.
And Eleanor Crowe had known where she was.
