Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Was Dead
Adrian brought Margaret inside under guard.
Nobody lowered their weapons.
Sophie ran toward her grandmother.
Margaret dropped to her knees and wrapped the child in her arms.
“You’re okay.”
Sophie pressed her face against Margaret’s shoulder.
“Mommy is gone.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“I know.”
Adrian watched them from across the foyer.
Everything about Margaret’s reaction appeared genuine.
That did not mean he trusted her.
“Library.”
Margaret looked up.
“Now.”
Daniel stayed close as they entered the room.
Sophie remained with a female security officer just outside.
Adrian placed the old photographs on the desk.
“You have five minutes to explain why Claire told me you were dead.”
Margaret looked at the photograph of herself beside Eleanor.
Her expression changed.
“She was protecting me.”
“From Thomas?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Margaret hesitated.
Adrian leaned forward.
“You walked onto my property carrying a weapon and told me my mother was murdered.”
“I carried the gun because I didn’t know who controlled your security.”
“Daniel does.”
Margaret looked at him.
“Are you sure?”
Daniel’s posture stiffened.
Adrian noticed.
Margaret continued.
“Thomas Vale was never the beginning of this.”
“Then what was he?”
“A caretaker.”
“For whom?”
Margaret looked directly at Adrian.
“Your uncle.”
Marcus Blackwood.
The supposedly dead man.
Adrian felt a chill.
“You’re saying Marcus is alive.”
“I’m saying Marcus never died.”
Adrian walked toward the window.
Rain moved down the glass in long streaks.
“My father identified the body.”
“Your father identified what he wanted the world to believe.”
Margaret opened her coat.
Daniel immediately reached toward his weapon.
She slowly removed a sealed envelope.
Inside was a photograph dated fourteen years after Marcus’s reported death.
Marcus stood beside Thomas Vale at a private airfield.
He looked older.
But unmistakably alive.
Adrian stared at the photograph.
“Why fake his death?”
“Because Marcus discovered what your father was doing.”
“What was my father doing?”
Margaret’s face hardened.
“Buying people.”
Adrian said nothing.
“Judges.”
“Executives.”
“Officials.”
“Competitors.”
“Anyone who could protect the Blackwood empire.”
Margaret pointed toward the basement.
“Your mother discovered the records.”
Adrian looked toward the floor.
“The red room.”
“Yes.”
“She was going to expose him?”
“She was going to leave.”
Margaret’s voice softened.
“She wanted to take you with her.”
Adrian remembered very little about the night Eleanor died.
Rain.
Police lights.
His father sitting silently in the library.
Thomas standing near the staircase.
His mother’s car had supposedly gone off a mountain road.
“Who killed her?”
Margaret looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
Adrian’s expression sharpened.
“You just told me she was murdered.”
“I know she didn’t crash by accident.”
“How?”
“Because she called me twenty minutes before she died.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with old grief.
“She said someone was following her.”
Adrian remained still.
“She told me if she didn’t make it to the meeting place, I had to protect the archive.”
“What archive?”
Margaret pointed toward the photographs.
“The Blackwood Contingency.”
Adrian remembered the folder.
“What is it?”
“Insurance.”
“Against whom?”
“Everyone.”
Margaret sat.
“Your father kept proof of everything.”
“Payments.”
“Deals.”
“Threats.”
“Secret partnerships.”
“He believed information was more valuable than money.”
Adrian felt sick.
“And Claire found it.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Margaret almost smiled sadly.
“Because Claire inherited her mother’s curiosity.”
Adrian looked at her.
“You’re Claire’s mother.”
Margaret nodded.
“You said she inherited her mother’s curiosity.”
A long silence followed.
Then Adrian understood.
“You aren’t her biological mother.”
Margaret closed her eyes briefly.
“No.”
“Who is?”
Margaret looked toward the photograph of Eleanor.
Adrian’s heartbeat changed.
“No.”
Margaret did not speak.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
She could not.
Adrian stepped backward.
“Claire is my sister?”
“No.”
Margaret stood quickly.
“Not your sister.”
“Then explain it.”
“Eleanor wasn’t Claire’s mother.”
Adrian stared at her.
Margaret pointed at another woman in the old photograph.
“Her name was Rachel Carter.”
“My sister.”
“She was Claire’s mother.”
Adrian exhaled slowly.
“And Claire’s father?”
Margaret looked toward the rain.
“That is the secret Thomas warned you about.”
Adrian’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Thomas Vale.
“You shouldn’t have let Margaret inside.”
Adrian looked at her.
“She says Marcus is alive.”
Thomas was silent.
“That got your attention.”
“Where is Claire?”
“You’re asking the wrong question.”
“What should I ask?”
Thomas lowered his voice.
“Ask why Margaret came back today.”
Adrian looked at Margaret again.
She saw the change in his expression.
“Thomas says—”
Margaret interrupted.
“Hang up.”
Thomas heard her.
He laughed softly.
“Hello, Margaret.”
Margaret’s face went pale.
Thomas continued.
“You always arrive just before the bodies start falling.”
Adrian’s voice hardened.
“Enough.”
“Adrian.”
Thomas sounded suddenly serious.
“Claire isn’t the only prisoner.”
The line crackled.
“There’s someone else with her.”
“Who?”
Thomas answered with two words.
“Your father.”
Adrian nearly laughed from disbelief.
“My father is dead.”
“No.”
Thomas’s voice became quiet.
“He’s been waiting eight years for you to find him.”
The call ended.
Nobody in the library moved.
Adrian looked at Margaret.
She appeared terrified.
Not surprised.
“You knew.”
Margaret shook her head.
“I suspected.”
“My father is alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Thomas says he is.”
Margaret backed toward the desk.
“Then we are in more danger than I thought.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“Why?”
Margaret looked at Adrian.
“Because if Vincent Blackwood is alive, Marcus isn’t the man running this.”
Adrian’s phone vibrated again.
A photograph appeared.
Claire sat in the same dark room.
Beside her was an older man facing away from the camera.
The man slowly turned.
Adrian recognized him.
Older.
Thinner.
Gray-haired.
But unmistakable.
Vincent Blackwood.
May you like
His dead father looked directly into the camera.
And smiled.
