Chapter 8 - The Blue Room
The blue room was not Sebastian's.
It was Victoria's.
Claire had written notes beneath each photograph.
V controls transfers.
S terrified of exposure.
N handles records.
A handles money.
Three initials.
Victoria.
Nathaniel.
Alexander.
The Vale children were not trapped inside their father's conspiracy.
They had inherited it.
Then they had expanded it.
Daniel explained that Sebastian originally built the network decades earlier to conceal illegal adoptions among wealthy clients.
He used money and influence to manipulate records.
It was monstrous.
But his children transformed it into something more sophisticated.
Alexander laundered money.
Nathaniel managed politicians and nonprofit connections.
Victoria controlled the children.
“She realized terrified people were more valuable than money,” Daniel said.
“She recorded everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“Judges who approved sealed cases.”
“Doctors who falsified documents.”
“Donors who requested children.”
“Politicians who accepted favors.”
“She built an empire out of evidence.”
I thought of the gala guests.
The frozen faces.
The refusal to move when Lucy screamed.
Perhaps some of them had not been shocked by what was behind the wall.
Perhaps they had been terrified that their own secrets were about to come out.
We gave the laptop to Marcus.
Within hours, federal agents began planning raids.
But Victoria had anticipated us.
The Connecticut facility burned before sunrise.
No children were inside.
All seven had already been taken into federal protection.
But the records were destroyed.
The New Jersey warehouse exploded thirty minutes later.
The East Seventy-Third Street townhouse flooded when a sprinkler control system malfunctioned.
Evidence vanished in three locations on the same morning.
Then Nathaniel Vale disappeared.
His car was found near the Hudson River.
Blood covered the driver's seat.
No body.
The media assumed Sebastian had begun eliminating witnesses.
I did not.
That afternoon, I received a text from an unknown number.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW CLAIRE DIED.
Below it was an address.
An abandoned church in Brooklyn.
Marcus told me not to go.
Daniel told me it was a trap.
I went anyway.
The church was empty except for a single woman sitting in the front pew.
Margaret Vale.
Sebastian's wife.
She did not turn when I entered.
“You're more like your sister than I hoped.”
I walked closer.
“You knew Claire.”
“I tried to save Claire.”
My hand tightened around my phone.
“Who killed her?”
Margaret finally looked at me.
May you like
Her eyes were wet.
“My daughter.”
