Chapter 2 - The Photograph Inside My Locket
“Don't let him in.”
My mother's voice was barely audible.
Alexander was already moving.
He crossed the bathroom, locked the door, and called our head of security.
“Marcus. Nobody enters this house.”
A pause.
Then Alexander's expression changed.
“What do you mean he's already inside?”
My stomach dropped.
Alexander opened a security application on his phone.
The camera feed showed the foyer.
My father stood beneath the chandelier.
Richard Vale was seventy-one years old and still carried himself like the man who had controlled every room I entered as a child.
Silver hair.
Perfect navy suit.
Cane he didn't technically need but liked people to notice.
He wasn't alone.
Two attorneys stood behind him.
So did Teresa.
Our house manager looked horrified.
“I told him you weren't receiving visitors,” she said through the camera speaker.
Richard smiled.
“My daughter always receives me.”
My mother backed against the wall.
I had never seen terror look so physical.
“Mom.”
She shook her head.
“He can't see me.”
“He already knows.”
“You don't understand.”
“Then tell me.”
Her eyes moved toward the locked door.
“Not while he's here.”
I wanted to demand answers.
Instead, I looked at the woman who had survived twenty years without me.
Whatever had happened, I could wait another hour.
Alexander arranged for security to escort Richard into his study rather than allowing him farther into the house.
Then we moved my mother into the private guest suite adjoining my dressing room.
I found her clean clothes.
A soft gray sweater.
Loose black pants.
Fresh socks.
She stared at them as if they were diamonds.
When she came out twenty minutes later, I nearly broke again.
Without the dirt, I could see her.
Age had changed almost everything.
But not her eyes.
Not the small tilt of her mouth.
Not the way she tucked wet hair behind her right ear.
My mother.
Alive.
I sat beside her on the bed.
“Do you remember the locket?”
She nodded.
“I gave it to you the week before I left.”
“You didn't leave.”
Her fingers tightened.
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
A knock interrupted us.
Alexander.
“Richard is threatening to call the police.”
“For what?”
“He claims Eleanor is mentally incompetent and that we are unlawfully detaining her.”
My mother gave a bitter laugh.
“He hasn't changed.”
I stood.
“He lied to me for twenty years.”
“Bella.”
I turned.
She used the childhood nickname softly.
“Do not confront him alone.”
“I'm thirty-seven.”
“I know.”
“I'm not twelve anymore.”
“That isn't what I'm afraid of.”
Alexander looked at her.
“What are you afraid of?”
My mother stared at the floor.
“Richard doesn't lose control easily.”
That sentence followed me downstairs.
My father was standing beside the fireplace when I entered the study.
He smiled.
“Bella.”
“Don't call me that.”
His smile faded.
Alexander closed the door.
The attorneys remained outside.
Richard looked between us.
“So it's true.”
“What?”
“She convinced you.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“Convinced me?”
“That she's your mother.”
“She is my mother.”
“You don't know that.”
“I know things she remembers.”
“Memories can be researched.”
“She has the birthmark.”
“So?”
“She has Mom's hairbrush.”
“Objects are stolen.”
I stared at him.
“How did you know she was here?”
Richard paused.
That was the first crack.
Alexander noticed too.
“I called because one of my investigators told me.”
“Why do you have an investigator watching a homeless woman?”
My father's expression hardened.
“I have investigators watching many situations that might affect this family.”
“This family?”
I stepped closer.
“You told me my mother died.”
“She did.”
“She is upstairs.”
“The woman upstairs is unstable.”
“Her name is Eleanor.”
“Her name is whatever she needs it to be.”
I slapped the photograph from the locket onto his desk.
His eyes dropped to it.
For half a second, grief crossed his face.
Real grief.
Then it disappeared.
“Where did you get that?”
“You know exactly where.”
He looked at Alexander.
“This is private family business.”
Alexander didn't move.
“My wife is my family.”
Richard's nostrils flared.
I leaned on the desk.
“What happened October fourteenth?”
Silence.
“Dad.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Twenty years ago.”
“I remember the date.”
“Then answer me.”
Richard slowly sat.
“Your mother was ill.”
“What kind of illness?”
“She became paranoid.”
I remembered laughter.
Bedtime stories.
Her singing badly in the kitchen.
Arguments with my father.
Doors closing.
Her crying once.
But paranoia?
“No.”
“You were a child.”
“I was twelve.”
“Exactly.”
He folded his hands.
“She believed people were following her. She accused me of stealing from the family foundation. She became unpredictable.”
Alexander's gaze sharpened.
“What foundation?”
Richard ignored him.
“One night she took a car and disappeared.”
“You said there was an accident.”
“A year later.”
“What accident?”
“A vehicle belonging to her was found near Asheville.”
“With a body?”
“No.”
“Then why tell me she was dead?”
“Because experts told me survival was unlikely.”
My chest tightened.
“That isn't what you said.”
“I protected you.”
“You buried her without a body.”
“I gave you closure.”
“You gave me a lie.”
The door opened.
My mother stood there.
Richard rose so quickly his chair fell backward.
For a man who claimed she wasn't Eleanor, he looked as though he had seen a ghost.
“Hello, Richard.”
My father's mouth opened.
No sound came.
Mom entered.
Alexander immediately moved closer to her.
She carried the silver hairbrush.
Richard stared at it.
“You kept that?”
“For twenty years.”
His face hardened again.
“You should not be here.”
My mother smiled sadly.
“That's what you told me the last time.”
I looked between them.
“What happened?”
Mom placed the hairbrush on the desk.
“You didn't tell her?”
Richard said nothing.
“Of course you didn't.”
She looked at me.
“Your father didn't kill me.”
My lungs loosened.
Then she finished.
“But he made sure no one believed I was alive.”
Silence filled the study.
She told us in pieces.
Twenty years earlier, Eleanor had discovered irregular transfers from the Vale Family Foundation.
Money intended for housing programs and domestic violence shelters had been routed through consulting firms.
Millions.
She confronted Richard.
He claimed it was legitimate.
She didn't believe him.
So she copied the records.
She planned to take them to an attorney.
Before she could, she was admitted to a private psychiatric facility.
Against her will.
Richard interrupted.
“You were unwell.”
“I was drugged.”
“You were delusional.”
“You paid Dr. Malcolm Reeves to certify me.”
My father's face changed.
Alexander stepped forward.
“Malcolm Reeves?”
Mom looked at him.
“You know the name?”
Alexander nodded slowly.
“He lost his medical license in Virginia twelve years ago.”
“For falsifying records,” Mom said.
My skin went cold.
“Dad?”
Richard stood.
“Enough.”
“No,” I said. “Not even close.”
Mom continued.
She had spent eleven months in the facility.
When she was finally released after another doctor questioned the commitment order, she tried to come home.
Richard had already obtained temporary sole custody of me.
He told her that if she approached me, he would have her recommitted.
Then he showed her reports claiming I had suffered severe trauma from her disappearance.
“He said seeing me would destroy you,” she whispered.
I began crying again.
“You believed him?”
“I had no money. No lawyer. No one believed me.”
“Grandma?”
“Your grandmother believed Richard.”
“My uncle?”
“Worked for him.”
I felt sick.
“What about the documents?”
“Gone.”
Richard laughed.
“There were no documents.”
Mom turned toward him.
“There was one copy you never found.”
The room froze.
My father stopped smiling.
I looked at her.
“Where?”
She touched the silver hairbrush.
“The handle used to open.”
Richard lunged forward.
Alexander stepped between them instantly.
“Don't.”
My father stopped.
Mom twisted the bottom of the brush.
Nothing happened.
She tried again.
The handle loosened.
Inside was a narrow hollow compartment.
Empty.
Mom stared.
“No.”
Richard slowly smiled.
“You see?”
She shook the brush.
Nothing.
“It was there.”
“Twenty years ago?”
“Yes.”
“And you've been living on the street carrying evidence worth millions?”
“I didn't know it was gone.”
I took the brush.
Inside the compartment was something.
Not paper.
A small brass key.
I tipped it into my palm.
Mom looked confused.
“That isn't mine.”
Alexander examined it.
A number had been engraved along one side.
214.
My father went pale.
I looked up.
“You recognize it.”
“No.”
“You do.”
Richard grabbed his cane.
“This has gone far enough.”
Alexander blocked the doorway.
“You're not leaving yet.”
My father smiled without humor.
“You cannot detain me.”
“I'm not. But Isabella has one more question.”
I held up the key.
“What does 214 open?”
Richard stared at me.
“Nothing that concerns you.”
That was as good as an answer.
He left ten minutes later.
But before he did, he stopped beside my mother.
“You should have stayed gone.”
I stepped between them.
“Get out.”
Richard looked at me.
For the first time in my life, he seemed to understand I was not afraid of him.
That night, none of us slept.
Alexander's investigator traced the key manufacturer.
It belonged to a bank deposit-box system used by a private financial institution that had closed nine years earlier.
Most boxes had been transferred.
Box 214 had not.
Its contents had been placed in legal storage after fees stopped being paid.
The original registered renter was not Richard.
Not Eleanor.
It was someone named Thomas Vale.
My grandfather.
He had died when I was nine.
At 11:43 p.m., Alexander received a digital copy of the storage inventory.
One sealed envelope.
One microcassette.
One photograph.
And one notarized document.
My mother sat beside me while Alexander opened the scanned inventory.
The photograph appeared first.
It showed my mother standing outside a building twenty years earlier.
Beside her was a man I didn't recognize.
My father stood behind them.
On the back, someone had written:
If anything happens to Eleanor, Richard knows why.
I looked at my mother.
“Who wrote that?”
She stared at the handwriting.
Then she began shaking.
“My father.”
Alexander scrolled to the notarized document description.
His face tightened.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned the screen toward me.
The inventory listed the document by title.
DECLARATION OF PATERNITY AND BENEFICIAL OWNERSHIP — ISABELLA ELEANOR VALE.
I stared at the words.
“Paternity?”
My mother closed her eyes.
I grabbed her hand.
“Mom.”
She wouldn't look at me.
“Who is my father?”
Before she could answer, Alexander's investigator called.
He sounded breathless through the speaker.
“Mr. Hart, don't retrieve the box yet.”
“Why?”
“Someone accessed the storage facility forty minutes ago.”
My mother stood.
“Who?”
The investigator paused.
Then said a name none of us expected.
“Dr. Malcolm Reeves.”
May you like
The doctor who had committed my mother twenty years ago was still alive.
And he had just taken Box 214.
